Match The Music To The target audience.
Match The Music To The target audience.
There are many music ministers that are not reaching their audience because they want to sing like another international contemporary music star but their audience are impacted so after all the singing and energy it seems like there is no impartation at all.
"You need to Match your music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach!"
Consider this Three thoughts about music in worship...
- Music is powerful
- You can not please everyone
- What is your message?
1. Music Is Powerful
Music is an integral part of our lives. We eat with it, drive with it, shop with it, relax with it, and some even dance to it! There is nothing that we can not do with music as far as life is concerned either in the spirit or physical.
A song often can touch people in a way that a sermon can't. Music can bypass intellectual barriers and take the message straight to the heart. It is a potent tool for evangelism. The educated and uneducated csan understand the sound of music.
In Psalm 40:3 (NCV) David says, "He put a NEW song in my mouth.... Many people will see this and worship him. Then they will trust the Lord." Notice the clear connection between music and evangelism: "Then they will trust the Lord."
Music is a force that cannot be ignored. The rock lyrics of the 1960s and 1970s shaped the values of most Americans who are now in the thirty to fifty-age bracket.
Music shapes the lifes, systems and believes of nations. Music is a gateway opener into an unseen realities in our world.
Today, MTV shapes the values of most people in their twenties. Music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation. If we don't use contemporary music to spread godly values, Satan will have
2. You Can't Please Everyone
One of the mistake I made at the beginning was trying to appeal to everybody's taste. I want to sing all perthern, genre and like every music star I have ever heard in a single service! alternating between rock, raggae, pod, african praise, traditional hymns, praise choruses, and contemporary Christian songs.
Yes! I needed to make everyone happy, so I used classical, country, jazz, rock, reggae, easy listening, and even rap. The crowd never knew what was coming next.
You know it really paid off because I actually pleased No Body! and frustrated everybody and at the end my music carreer and ministry suffered terribly.
It's impossible to appeal to everyone's musical preference and taste. Music styles separate generations, regions of the country, personality types, and even family members! So we shouldn't be surprised when opinions differ in the church.
You must decide whom you're trying to reach, identify their preferred style of music, and then stick with it. Define your target audience, bite the bullet, and go for it. You're wasting your time if you're searching for a style of music that everyone in your church will agree on.
The style of music you choose to use in your services will be one of the most critical (and controversial!) decisions you make in the life of your church. It may be the most influential factor in determining whom your church reaches for Christ and whether or not your church grows. You must match your music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach.
The music you use "positions" your church in your community. It defines
It will determine the kind of people you attract, the kind of people you keep, and the kind of people you lose.
3. What is your message?
The kind of music you like is determined by your background and culture so the idea that music styles can be judged as either "good" or "bad" music isnt true because Certain tones and scales sound pleasant to Asian ears, Other tones and scales sound pleasant to Middle Eastern ears and Africans enjoy different rhythms than South Americans so its all about the message, not the music!
So how do you reach a mix audience of Asians, Americans, African, indians etc.?
To insist that all "good" music was written in Europe 200 years ago is cultural elitism. There certainly isn't any biblical basis for that view. Depending on where you grew up, you may love Kentucky bluegrass, Dixieland jazz, Chicago blues, African Calpso, Highlife, Afrobeat, Fuji, Milwaukee polka, or Nashville country and western. None of these styles is any "better" music than the other.
In churches, we also need to admit that no particular style of music is "sacred." What makes a song sacred is the message of it. That sacred message may be communicated in a wide variety of musical styles.
For 2,000 years, the Holy Spirit has used all different kinds of music to bring glory to God. It takes all kinds of churches, using all kinds of music styles, to reach all kinds of people. To insist that one particular style of music is sacred is simply idolatry.
There is no such thing as "Christian music." There are only Christian lyrics! Music is just an arrangement of notes and rhythms. It's the words that make a song spiritual. If I were to play a tune for you without any words, you wouldn't know if it was a Christian song or not.
I'm amused whenever I hear Christians resist the contemporary Christian songs by saying, "We need to get back to our musical roots!" I wonder how far back they want to go. Back to the Gregorian chant? Back to the Jewish melodies of the Jerusalem church? They usually only want to go back about 50 to 100 years.
What style of music did they use in the New Testament churches? The truth is, we don't know what their hymns sounded like. I can tell you that they used the style that matched the instruments and culture common to that day. They obviously didn't have pianos or organs back then, so the music wouldn't sound at all like the music in your church!
On the other hand, when I read about biblical worship in the Psalms, I see that they used drums, cymbals, trumpets, tambourines, and stringed instruments. That sounds a lot like contemporary music to me!
So as much as we can use any style of music that fits our church community, the people and culture, the sacred message of the gospel of our dear Lord Jesus must be fully and vividly embeded in our music.
Conclusion
You must understand the power of music and what you can use music to achieve for God and grow your church membership.
Define your target audience, Understand and take a very careful note that you can not apeal to everyone's music taste. Understand the community, culture and the people.
You must decide whom you're trying to reach, identify their preferred style of music, and then stick with it.
Finally what is the message of your music? The music is not a christian music because it was written by a christian, the song is not a christian song because it has the name of Jesus or God mentioned in it. its about the gospel message not the music.
What Is the Gospel? The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy. That's the gospel. The term Full Gospel or Fourfold Gospel is an evangelical doctrine that summarizes the Gospel in four aspects, namely the salvation, sanctification, faith healing and Second Coming of Christ.
