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Your Church, Jan/Feb 2000
L I G H T I N G & V I D E O
Building Blocks of Blended Worship
The equipment you'll need for a great mix of contemporary and traditional forms of worship
Curt Taipale
According to a recent study by YOUR CHURCH, the growth of contemporary music in worship has slowed, whereas blended worship is on the upswing (see Special Report, Nov/Dec).
Blended worship can be defined in various ways. According to Robert Webber, author of dozens of books on worship including Planning Blended Worship, blended worship is usually defined in terms of music. It's seen as a combination of any kind of older music—ancient hymns, psalms, and traditional gospel songs—with contemporary choruses and praise music.
That's a superficial understanding of what blended worship really is, Webber says. He prefers to define it as "a true convergence of worship rooted in biblical sources, which draws from the great traditions of the church so that it is truly catholic, Reformed, evangelical, and charismatic. It is also deeply committed to contemporary relevance. It is therefore ecclectic and engages people in a relationship with God through all forms of music and the arts, including contemporary choruses, drama, storytelling, common gestures, creative movements, participatory involvement, pageantry, and environmental art."
My How You've Grown
My first experience with blended worship was an effort by a traditional mainline church to incorporate into its traditional services the requests of younger members for newer, more contemporary music. That was part of what later became a growing trend to incorporate new forms of praise and worship music, drama, dance, storytelling, and congregational involvement into worship.
Some people who grew up with hymns, organs, choirs, and straightforward preaching clung to those ways. Others welcomed change. Still others insisted on change. Churches responded to the growing controversy in various ways (see "Triumph of the Praise Songs," CHRISTIANITY TODAY, July 12). Some offered a choice of services including traditional and contemporary. That solution proved successful for a number of churches. But others resisted it, saying such an approach divides a congregation and promotes an us-against-them mentality.
In time, churches began offering blended worship as a way to accept everyone's preferences as valid. In many churches, blended worship is now working well as many independent churches that were birthed to give people a contemporary worship experience begin to work old hymns and songs back into services.
Adjustments Along the Way
Blended worship doesn't always work. I've watched church congregations stand and confidently sing their favorite hymns, then sit in awkward silence as a worship leader tries to teach them a praise-and-worship song. Still, blending the two styles can work if new songs and other unfamiliar elements of worship are gradually incorporated into worship.
Churches that are in the process of developing the contemporary side of worship may encounter some technology issues required to support that kind of worship. Just what kind of sound, lighting, projection, and stage equipment is necessary to support blended worship?
1. Heads up for learning. Your congregation has been singing from hymnals or songbooks, and now it's time to teach them new songs. You could print lyrics to the new music in the church bulletin or pass out song sheets. But it's no fun to worship the God of the Universe with people's eyes buried in pieces of paper. So one of the first things a church with blended worship may want to invest in is a videoprojector to get the lyrics up on the wall.
Overhead projectors work okay, but they're a bit clumsy to operate and tend to draw attention to themselves and their operators. One step up from that, technologically, is a 35mm slide projector. With the addition of a long lens, the slide projector can be placed far enough away from the stage to be discrete.
Transferring lyrics to slides for projection will add some expense to the worship service, especially if the church hires an outside service to do that. If you decide to generate your own computer file of lyrics and transfer them to slides, make sure you do not violate copyright law. Get permission to duplicate such materials from the songwriter or publisher. Or purchase an annual license from Church Copyright Licensing International (800-234-2446).
More and more churches are choosing to videoproject computer graphics onto a screen over the stage. If your ceiling height is too low to do that, images can be projected onto the front walls on both sides of the stage area. That will double the cost of videoprojection, however. It's also more costly to project a clear image in the presence of bright stage lighting. Barco, Sony, Panasonic, Eiki, Sharp, and Digital Projection all have excellent videoprojection systems to accommodate you, whatever the conditions.
Putting together videos of announcements, sermon outlines, missionary profiles, or teaching illustrations is easy. Any church with a reasonably fast computer and a simple graphics program such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Fowler's Song Show Plus can come up with professional-looking graphics.
2. Crank up the program. When I think of singing in a blended worship service, I think of piano, organ, choir, and a music leader. That's pretty simple to accommodate, in terms of production. Besides basic lighting, there's little need for anything but a great-sounding loudspeaker system. When I think of contemporary worship, however, I expect a section of drums, keyboards, guitars, and other instruments plus worship teams and a drama troupe. That complicates production. What's needed:
• More gear. One of the first changes a church will likely make to service the more complex audio needs of blended worship is a larger sound console. More instrumentalists and singers on stage require more microphones and more stage monitors so people can hear themselves play and sing in tune. With so many extra players, you might even start looking for a way to enlarge the platform.
• More setup time. More gear and more players mean you'll need more time to rehearse and set up be fore each worship service. More than one person should be asked to prepare sound, lighting, and video equipment. If you don't have enough people, the demands of the job could eventually lead to burnout, misplaced priorities—even family troubles.
• More training. Musicians and singers on a praise team may study and practice their craft for years before leading a congregation in worship, but many sound engineers are volunteers who are just beginning to learn the complexities of sound. They can hardly be expected to work audio miracles. God's laws of physics don't change between the recording studio and a church platform. Capturing great sounds for a live worship service requires years of experience and training on a wide range of equipment.
For example, volunteers will learn how to use compressors to smooth out the dynamic range of vocalists who may sing softly one minute and way too loud the next. They can also smooth out the blend of various instruments. Some of the more popular compressors for church sound are made by dbx, Symetrix, Ashly, PreSonus, and Rane.
The simple addition of reverb to a solo or group song can greatly enhance the sound. Today even a small church can afford a great sound-effects processor, offered by companies such as Lexicon, Yamaha, Peavey, and Alesis.
• Better linkup. One way to ensure a smoothly run service is to provide a communication link among the technical-support team members, the pastor, and the music leader. Clear-Com, RTS, and Production Intercom all provide high-quality production intercom systems for churches.
3. Do a sanctuary sound check. One comment that I often hear from churches that are integrating contemporary elements into their worship is: "Our church was never built for the style of worship that we're doing today."
Many of the churches built in the 1960s or before were acoustically designed to support an unamplified choir and preacher. Organ was the predominant musical instrument. Praise-team singers and bands as well as drama actors require different kinds of acoustical support within that same environment.
For example, organ and choir music—the mainstay of traditional worship—sound great in a sanctuary with a reverberation time of around 2 or 3 seconds. But the fast tempo of many contemporary songs gets swallowed up by that long reverb time. Con temporary music works better if the reverberation time is 1 to 1.5 seconds.
4. Turn up the lighting. Traditional elements in a blended worship service may work well with all the lights full up, but a drama sketch or introduction to a new song will be more effective with a more theatrical approach to lighting. That means you'll have to up date your lighting system. New "intelligent" fixtures, dimmer channels, a computerized lighting desk, and robotic lights can offer fast, dramatic changes.
5. Strike up the band. A traditional pipe organ doesn't sound like an electronic keyboard, yet an electronic keyboard layer is an integral ingredient of the contemporary music style. To do blended worship well, you'll have to add more instruments to your musical repertoire, such as acoustic guitars, drums, and an electronic keyboard.
In addition, you will soon realize that instruments take on different roles in different parts of a blended service. For traditional hymn singing, a musician is trained to play the bass part on the pedals of an organ. With contemporary music, the bass guitar in a rhythm section takes that role. I once suggested to a church that was struggling to make this adjustment that the organist simply not play the bass pedals on any songs that the bass guitar would be playing. Two organists al most left the church that night. Go figure.
Adapt to Fit
Moving your church toward blended worship may require some adjustments, many of which will be unique to your church. But if the Holy Spirit has told you to do so, take heart—there are hundreds of success stories to encourage you.
For example, Lynwood Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, began moving toward blended worship about five years ago. Today in both of its morning services, the church offers a true blend of contemporary and traditional elements: choir, praise group, acoustic guitars, drums, grand piano, hymns, praise-and-worship choruses, interpretive dance, drama sketches, and handbells.
John Russell, a member of the church, says the blended style has unified the congregation. "Sure, everyone has an opinion about what they like best, but it's the dynamic changing services every week that keep many of our folks coming," he says. "As the pastor tells the congregation on a regular basis, 'Be flexible!'"
Curt Taipale is a church sound and acoustics consultant. He can be reached at ctaipale@aol.com.
Blending Worship in a Small Church
Fear of expense shouldn't stop a small church from trying blended worship. If you can afford to buy all the audiovisual, lighting, sound, and instrumental gear you'll need, that's great, but you won't need all of it to do blended worship. Just start with the basics and build as you go along.
Adapt to Fit
If you are blessed with musicians to lead worship, start with a worship leader playing an acoustic guitar or piano. To support that, your sound system could consist of a couple of microphones, a direct box for the guitar or electronic keyboard, a simple mixer with maybe six to eight inputs, a power amplifier, and one or two loudspeakers. You could even start off by using powered speakers or a powered mixer.
Portable small churches that want to offer blended worship are more of a challenge. These churches rely upon a valiant support crew to unload a church trailer packed full of sound equipment and other necessities for worship. They set up every Sunday morning in record speed, operate the equipment during the services, then pack everything up and load it into the trailer until the next weekend.
Out of necessity, they must assemble equipment efficiently. For example, in a permanent building, the microphone inputs on stage are already plugged into the main console with individual connectors. It takes a lot of time to position all those connectors. A more efficient method for a portable church crew is to prewire the console with a multipin connector so that during the rapid early Sunday morning setup all it takes to plug the multipair cable into the console is two twists of one large connector. That reduces the setup from several minutes to ten seconds.
Go for the Gold
If your small church is trying to integrate elements of contemporary worship into a traditional service, you'll eventually face all of the issues that larger churches do. But you don't have to start throwing money at the problem. Stay in touch with other churches to see how they're solving the issues. Lose the solutions that aren't working for them, and use the ideas that are.
Helpful Resources
For more help in meeting some of the technology requirements of blended worship:
| • All Pro Sound
• Azden
• Barco
• Eiki International
• Electro-Voice
• Fender Musical Instrument Corp.
• Fowler
• Lightronics
• Mackie Designs
• Panasonic
• Shure Brothers
• Telex Communications
• Yamaha Corp. of America |
800-925-9822
516-328-7500
770-218-3200
800-322-3454
800-234-6831
602-596-9690
800-729-0163
800-472-8541
800-258-6883
800-528-8601
800-25-SHURE
800-392-3497
800-711-0745 |
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today International/Your Church Magazine. Click here for reprint information on Your Church.
January/February 2000, Vol. 46, No. 1, Page 34
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