How worship services have changed since 2000
May 9, 2014
By Gene Veith
LifeWay CEO Thom S. Rainer cites the
findings of the National Congregations Study from
Duke University on how church services have changed over the last 10
years. It isn’t just a matter of contemporary worship styles or the
worship wars. The study cites changes that also, I dare say, apply to
liturgical and traditional services. See the list of 9 changes after the
jump.
1.
Choirs are disappearing. From 1998
to 2007, the percentage of churches with choirs decreased from 54% to 44%. If
that pace holds to this year, the percentage of churches with choirs is only
37%.
2.
Dress is more casual. In many
churches, a man wearing a tie in a worship service is now among the few rather
than the majority. While the degree of casual dress is contextual, the trend is
crossing all geographic and demographic lines.
3.
Screens are pervasive. Some of you
remember the days when putting a projection screen in a worship center was
considered a sacrilege. Now most churches have screens. And if they have
hymnals, the hymnals are largely ignored and the congregants follow along on
the screens.
4.
Preaching is longer. I will soon be
in the process of gathering this data to make certain the objective research
confirms the anecdotal information.
5.
“Multi” is normative. Most
congregants twenty years ago attended a Sunday morning worship service where no
other Sunday morning alternatives were available. Today, most congregants
attend a service that is part of numerous alternatives: multi-services;
multi-campuses; multi-sites; and multi-venues.
6.
Attendees are more diverse. The Duke
study noted the trend of the decrease in the number of all-white congregations.
7.
Conflict is not increasing. In a
recent post, I noted the decreasing frequency of worship wars. The Duke study
noted that overall church conflict has not increased over a 20-year period.
8.
More worship attendees are attending
larger churches. Churches with an attendance of 400 and up now account for 90%
of all worship attendees. Inversely, those churches with an attendance of under
400 only account for 10% of worship attendees.
9.
Sunday evening services are disappearing.
This issue has stirred quite a bit of discussion the past few years. I plan to
expand upon it in my post this coming Saturday. Stay tuned.
Does this ring true where you
worship? Which changes are positive and which are negative? Can
anything be done about the negative ones?
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