Contemporary worship styles highlighted

The pastor steps up to address the energetic crowd gathered to hear a Word from God. The platform is noticeably bare with a lone music stand positioned intentionally out front to hold the teacher’s Bible and notes.

A few moments earlier the stage area bounced and shook with a group of singers and musicians known as the praise and worship team. With hands and voices lifted high, the praise team led the seeking congregation in a very intentional and directional mode of worship.

As worship continued, the mood softened, slowed a bit and became serious. PowerPoint, videos and dramatic skits were woven into the mix of music and praise. And they all pointed to a message that would be tied to Scripture even more clearly by the teaching pastor.

Up he comes, sporting an oversized sloppy sweatshirt and faded black jeans. “Take out your handout and write down a few things,” the teaching pastor says. He proceeds to dissect a Scripture or two that relate to the underlying message that has been presented throughout the service. And, in a few minutes the pastor delivers a hard-hitting, to-the-point, fill-in-the-blank kind of message that is not called a sermon because his congregation doesn’t want to be preached to. They want to be taught, just like a group of about 400 Ala­bama Baptists recently seeking to learn more about this concept known as contemporary worship.

Speakers during the contemporary track of the Ala­bama Baptist State Evangelism Conference in Huntsville saturated most of the day Jan. 28 with the who, what, when, where, why and how of contemporary worship. Along with hearing testimonies from pastors who are succeeding with contemporary worship and discovering tips on how to transition from traditional to contemporary, those attending the conference also saw two contemporary services in action.

Rick White, pastor of First Baptist Church, Franklin, Tenn., and Lawrence Phipps, pastor of Vaughn Forest Baptist Church, Montgomery, brought their praise teams and recreated one of their recent Sunday morning worship services. The services played out differently but depicted a similar course of action.

White, a former Huntsville pastor, spoke about “Restoring emotional margin to our lives” by focusing on Matt. 11:28–30. Phipps used Matthew 4 and John 21 to talk about “How to become a follower.” Both used handouts, both told stories and both dressed casual. But it was the south Florida pastor on the program who won the “big, sloppy sweatshirt” award.

“You should never outdress your target,” said Dan Southerland, pastor of Flamingo Road Church, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“If your target (the average lost person in the church) wears a coat and tie, then you should wear a coat and tie, but you won’t believe what they show up in in Fort Lauderdale,” he said. “I just dress normal.”

Southerland emphasized that dressing like the target does not necessarily mean dressing like the longtime church members. The target is the group the church is attempting to win to Christ, he said.

A church’s target is defined geographically (the area around the church), demographically (the people around the church), culturally (the variety of cultures around the church) and spiritually (mature Christians, baby Christians, unchurched Christians or the lost).

“It’s all about becoming culturally relevant,” he said. “When international missionaries go overseas, we expect them to learn the language and the culture and blend into it. We don’t expect the missionaries to bring our culture to [the missions field],” he said. “The same concept goes for us in the United States because we are now on foreign soil and we must have a missionary mindset.

“The goal is not to be contemporary,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with tradition or traditional and there is nothing better about contemporary. The goal is to be beyond contemporary.

“Contemporary comes from two Latin words, con and tempo, meaning ‘with the times,’” Southerland said. “If your goal is to be contemporary then you will be frustrated all the way because about the time you get with the times, the times move,” he said. “Contemporary by itself is no better than traditional.”

Along with not outdressing the target, “never outtitle your target,” Southerland added.

“The people at Flamingo Road don’t call me Pastor Southerland or Dr. Southerland, they call me Dan,” he said, noting “lost people are looking for a pastor who is a person, not a doctor.”

And then finally, “don’t outtalk your target,” Southerland noted. “We are very normal at the door but then we launch into this preaching tone and voice and speed and every lost person out there says, ‘What a hypocrite.’

“When I speak I want [the audience] to feel like we are sitting in my living room having a one-on-one (conversation),” he explained.