I know I haven’t posted in a while so I’ll jump right in…

So much and so little has happened since I last came to you. I stay busy with my work at 1A and with running back and forth between Tallahassee and Perry seeing my super hot hottie fiancee’. ;-) – But on the whole, nothing is really new… Here are a few things of some interest, though…

Over the months of July and August, I spearheaded a couple of intergenerational worship projects in concert with Pastor David and the rest of the great staff here at 1A. We are fairly middle-of-the-road in our typical worship experiences… Tomlin, SONICFLOOd, Brewster, and Hillsong with some slightly diluted United and Desperation Band mixed in. While this tends to work well for most, I am aware that there are those among us who have difficulty transcending musical style in worship. Some of these desire hymns and country gospel music while others would like to see more of the cutting edge, guitar driven worship that is exemplified by Hillsong United. While these may seem to be the extremes of church music, I am quietly thankful that our membership’s preferences do not reach all the way from Gregorian Chant to Christian metal music like that from Disciple, Underoath, and Demon Hunter. Still, we saw a need to express our commitment to both outlying groups.

Drawing from an experience at Encounter Community Church, we evidenced our commitment to the well being of our older congregants by holding a one-time, Sunday night, special service called “Vintage”. This experience at the end of July featured traditional music including “I’ll Fly Away”, “I Surrender All”, and “It Is Well With My Soul”. To increase the perception of the service as a special, atypical, just-for-you offering, we did some marketing for the event, invited a few guest musicians to sit in for the night, and even dressed in the traditional, “Sunday best” fashion.

Our foil to this service came at the end of August and was entitled, “Engage: A Modern Worship Experience”. For this event, we aimed to please the younger generations’ taste in worship by cranking up the mains, using colored lighting effects, and playing a set that included electric guitar driven songs from Fee and United as well as intensely passionate slower pieces that would drive hands into the air and hearts into the light. For this event, we invited guest musicians again, but also a guest speaker from a local, modern church. We marketed the event to the middle and high school aged youth in our county via invite cards in the hands of our student ministry attenders and to the general public via the local newspaper and word-of-mouth.

Both events came off very well and achieved the intended effect. Both experiences prompted several people to request that we begin to do one or the other of the events on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, etc…). But more importantly, both services accomplished the greatest goal that we could have hoped for. In all of this planning, our essential vision was intergenerational worship. While this looked like an appeasement for each group, it served the greater purpose of exposing the entire congregation to the preferences of some subset of the congregation. The younger generations loved Engage… but they also had fun with the hillbilly beats of the faster music in Vintage and worshiped as though they didn’t even realize that some of the slower songs were even hymns. The older generations loved Vintage… but they gained a great appreciation for the modern worship style once they were able to see it in action… to see that it was not sinful worldliness brought into the church, but passionate praise with the same integrity as the oldest of hymns… albeit to an unfamiliar tune. And while neither of these experiences is planned to be offered on a regular basis, the combined effect of those two Sunday nights has forged a greater unity and respect between generations… a greater understanding that worship of God transcends personal preferences… and that understanding is the very foundation for intergenerational worship.

Also, this past Sunday was First Assembly’s homecoming service. Some people have trouble understanding the purpose of homecoming in a church while others regard it as a nearly sacred institution of the church. We sought to bring clarity by including explanation in our marketing of this event. We expanded the scope of our invite card marketing and added a local radio advertisement to the already effective newspaper public service announcement. The effect was apparent as there were tons of new faces in the crowd. Our purpose was to celebrate the heritage of the church and the sacrifices of past generations while looking forward to the future… being challenged by our great history to pursue an even greater future. If I could suggest one thing from the experiences of Vintage and Homecoming, it would be to make sure that you always use your regressive glimpses of tradition to encourage motion toward your vision. Never let the past be so glorified that it dims the hope or excitement for the future. Be trailblazers… not museum keepers.

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Anyway, that is enough for now. I’m looking forward to my wedding day (around 40 weeks from now!) and everything else that awaits me in the coming days. Keep me in your prayers as I strive to be a better partner, leader, and Christ-follower.

God bless,

— A