Big churches sound alike. Little churches are the ‘Wild West’ of music

Big churches sound alike. Little churches are the ‘Wild West’ of music

Step into a big Baptist church on Sunday morning and chances are you’ll hear the same popular worship songs played at other big churches around the country.

But show up in a small church, and you never know what you’ll find — anything from “How Great Thou Art” to “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

“Smaller churches are like the Wild West,” said Will Bishop, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “Anything goes.”

Bishop has been working on a recent survey project to better understand the worship music used in local churches, especially smaller congregations, in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

He said companies like Christian Copyright Licensing International [do] a good job tracking the most popular songs used in churches. But they often miss out on some of the details of worship in local congregations — such as who is picking songs or who plays them. They also miss when churches sing out of hymnals or other songbooks, rather than projecting songs on a screen.

The charts also can leave the impression that the only songs being sung in worship are hits from Hillsong, Bethel and other megachurches.

That’s true in big churches, he said, but not everywhere. Music at big churches is often put together by full-time staffers who have time to track down all the latest songs and follow the latest trends.

“They’re all going to the same conferences; they’re all kind of hanging out with the same people, he said. “If you’re in a small church, you may not have any connections. You’re not going to conferences. You may not know what’s going on in the bigger world.”

Martin Cherry, an associate pastor and worship leader…in Texas, said the congregation often sings “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and other older hymns during services, though with a more modern arrangement. The church had been mostly traditional till about a decade ago and slowly transitioned to more contemporary music.

Cherry said he and other leaders try to pick songs that fit the church’s identity, rather than trying to copy the latest trends. 

“When churches try to push too hard, in different styles of music, it’s like asking your people to put on a costume, pretending to be something you’re not.”

He said “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” feels more relevant in the COVID era, given how isolated and divided people feel.

Bishop’s survey did include some surprising results. He’d heard that some churches will play secular songs in services and decided to ask if that was the case. Some of the responses seemed to fit in church, like Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.” Others, like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” left him scratching his head.

If a church really was doing a singalong of the John Denver hit during services, “I’d like to see a video of that,” said Bishop.

https://religionnews.com/2023/07/07/big-church-may-sound-alike-but-litte-churches-are-wild-west-study-finds-worship-megachurch-hymns-are-not-dead-yet/