In case you missed it, we had a little poll a couple of weeks ago. Over 300 people responded. The question I asked was this: “Consider the worship music at your church. What genre of music would best describe the style?”
Here are the results of the poll:
- Rock 49%
- Pop 32%
- Alternative 12%
- R&B/Soul 4%
- Country 3%
- Hip-Hop/Rap 0%
By comparison, I thought you might be interested in seeing the same results from the current top 100 songs on iTunes.
- Pop 29%
- Hip-Hop/Rap 22%
- Rock 14%
- Alternative 11%
- Country 11%
- R&B/Soul 10%
Now, before we dive in, I think we need to state the obvious. This wasn’t a very scientific poll, so it doesn’t accurately reflect all the churches in the country. In fact, though I wish it weren’t the case, I’m guessing my site lacks ethnic diversity in its readership. That being the case, I’m hoping that explains some of the disparity we see in the numbers.
With those caveats, it’s pretty obvious that there are some glaring differences between the music genres that our culture is listening to and the ones used in our churches (those represented by the readers of this blog). For example:
- 49% of us are using rock music compared to only 14% of the top 100 songs on iTunes.
- 32% of the top iTunes hits are hip-hop/rap or R&B/soul, and only 4% of us are using that style of music in our worship services.
That raises some questions in my mind:
- Are we still using the right style of music to reach our culture?
- Can hip-hop, rap and R&B music be used to worship God? (I personally think the answer is yes. To me that question isn’t unlike the one previous generations wrestled with regarding the appropriateness of using rock music in worship.)
- Are there churches in America that are embracing hip-hop/rap and R&B/soul to reach the large portion of our culture that’s listening to that style of music?
- Have we adequately determined who we’re trying to reach and what style of music they resonate with?
- Do we have a responsibility to do anything about this?
What are your thoughts?
Hey Tony,
I’ve anxiously been awaiting those results and am not at all surprised. Especially with the hip-hop and rap results. I do feel lucky to have one of the few hip-hop churches just up the road and while I’ve only been a few times it definetely lets me know of the great need that is out there. While locally we’ve known about this for awhile I was also pleased to see Kem’s recent post giving props to their pastor’s new book. You can check out Crossover Church at http://www.crossoverchurch.org/
70%+ of all rap music is purchased by white suburban kids.
Tampa has a great church that incorporates rap/hip hop into the service flow. However, hip hop is a culture more than a style and takes some level of authenticity. The fake will NEVER work. The shift is being made. People are becoming tired of the same sound, feel, and style. Worship is more about the outpouring from your life. Worship should flow from the culture that you build in your community as well. There are some amazing worshippers who cross styles…it flows from the heart.
I think that you should play the music that you feel God is leading you to play. God gave you the “certain genre” of your church for the people who are meant to attend. My “rock” pastor would be a phony if he played rap just to fit in. I think authenticity is what is really going to reach people no matter what genre. Very interesting point.
Another question – I wonder how iTunes would classify many of our worship tunes if they weren’t “Inspirational” of “Gospel/Religious”? My guess – what many of us “Christians” call Rock, iTunes would call Pop. I’m certainly no expert…I’m a Children’s Pastor. :) And I know there is no way to really ever know. Just a thought…
Here’s the deal. Christian rap is not accepted, and is generally made fun of, by our culture. We’ve done a Blackeyed Peas song “Don’t Lie” in our church and kinda got the silent stare. This is in Oakland, California so its a diverse group of people staring at us.
I would also say that a lack of knowing what style we are doing is a factor in your poll. Its easiest to categorize country, rock, and pop as rock…I mean who wants to admit they play country and pop?
I think you bring up very valid points that churches who consciously want to reach our culture need to pay attention to. I also completely agree with what Stephen said about hip-hop being a culture not a style. I’ve been listening to rap/hip-hop since I was a very young kid, and i could sit here and rattle off dozens of raps, but i still wouldn’t consider myself to “be hip-hop” and wouldn’t dream of trying to perform any hip-hop.
having said that, it’s great to see some churches incorporate real hip-hop artists into a worship service. A friend of mine has been a member of Living Faith Fellowship ( http://www.lff.net ) in Elkhart, IN for quite a while, and I’ve heard from him how they are making every effort to embrace the community they’re in, which actually includes many people in the hip-hop scene. They incorporate rap/hip-hop artists in their worship time, and operate a radio station that broadcasts mostly rap and hip-hop 24-7.
I don’t know what the answer is for the statistic that says that 70% of all rap music is purchased by white suburban kids. how does a church in that neighborhood bring authentic hip-hop/rap into its worship service? i’m not sure.
Agreed there is a mis-match…however, in our service, for example, our band/musicians play a live worship set that reflects the rock/pop charts. But, we utilize clips/video/other media pieces that reflect hip/hop, r & b, soul, (not country!) in order to change it up. This could explain some of the survey disconnnect? We also utilize secular songs from a variety of genres as openers and closers…these are always “well-received”….No doubt friction will create traction for the culturally engaged church in this area…
I believe the music style a church uses depends solely on the context in which that church is planted. Ed Stetzer talks a lot about choosing music styles based on that and not so much on what “I” (as in the planter or pastor) want. I’m African-American and grew up with bluesy gospel, hip-hop, and R &B. But if God sends me to a community that revels in bluegrass, baby you better believe the worship music will reflect such.
Context matters. Peace.
[...] This blog is an unofficial poll about what kind of worship music churches are using. He has a lot of good things to say, and here’s a good place to start. Plus, he’s met Andy Stanley, and that makes him an indirect hero in my book. [...]
Pretty much what Missionalgirl said. What reaches your context, your culture? To do a nationwide poll lets us know what’s happening nationally. But local churches are just that: local.
Find out which radio station is #1. Save the time of doing a poll.
Tony, I rap. Recently when I did a set at a a youth conference here in Rhode Island, The Awakening Conference, we broke out into flat out worship. I’m from Detroit so I’m biased towards the genre. In RI, the places I seem to get invited to are biased AGAINST rap. None the less, these self professed “rockers” get engaged and embrace the music. They get ministered to in a way they don’t expect it and get blind sided by connecting with God via hip-hop.
I believe there are two reasons many in the church reject hip-hop as a form of worship. 1. They don’t understand it. 2. A good portion of it SUCKS!
There’s LOTS more I could share on the subject, but this is your blog…not mine.
I think part of the imbalance might have come from a missing option. If I had taken the survey, I would have chosen Pop or Rock, because there’s no “Adult Contempo” or “Quiet, Middle-of-the-Road but with Drums” option.
Tony,
You don’t totally lack diversity… I don’t know where I was when this poll started, but I have too say that I am not surprised.
I live in a predominately white community, and I am an associate pastor at a predominately white church (stats: only 0.56% of the population here is black, and I am one of five black people in a congregation of 1100).
Anyway, I have tried to introduce quality artist to the leaders here. Guys that are skilled rappers, and communicate the gospel in an effective way.
One group, 116 clique, actually did an album entitled 13 letters, and it was sound doctrinally with great beats, teaching the heart and spirit of Paul’s writing, but still not well received.
I believe that there are still some biased opinions from the generation previous against this music,and culture. They automatically associate it with violence and drugs, and anyone who listens to it is often associated with that lifestyle as well.
I even had one older worship leader tell me that it was not real worship music (when I say older I mean 50)
I pray for the day I can see a worship gathering open up with Mr. Dell, move into Kirk Franklin or Israel Houghton, and then transition straight into Lee or Hillsong.
I know this can be done,and that would be representative of the Kingdom.
Have to agree with Leonce. Your blog does not (totally) lack diversity. As an African-American – I would love to see the day when more churches would begin to acknowledge the incredible influence hip hop and rap music has on our culture.
A culture we believe we have been called to serve.
Sometimes I wonder if our prayers or crys for unity go often unheard because our actions (on Sundays) seem to say something different.
I do hope we will continue to make a conscious effort to develop ministry environments for those who we do not yet see in our congregations, rather than those we see today.
Thanks for this post Tony.
Tony, I really enjoyed this post. I am a Nigerian living and pastoring a multicultural congregation in Orlando, FL, so my eyes and ears perk up anytime I find something that further promotes this concept. I should tell you that celebration church in Jacksonville, FL (Stovall Weems) is the most amazing church I’ve seen in their ability to employ rap, hip-hop, R&B, rock and various other styles in their worship. They have definetely created their own sound and style and it is reflected in their congregations multicultural and multigenerational look. You guys should definetely check out his church.
I’ve been an advocate of using current, new music in church for a long time and have fought many battles to help make those transitions (I’ve got a lot of scars to prove it).
My question would be, though, “What demographic do those iTunes statistics cover?”. If it’s a general statistic, I’m not sure that it’s representative of the whole of our culture.
While iTunes is pervasive (I purchase from there all the time), my guess would be that the majority of purchases are made by a younger demo. That’s how music sales have traditionally been in our culture.
Different churches are trying to reach different demographics, so to assume that we’re not using the right music simply because the purchasing patterns of iTunes buyers don’t match up, may not be the best gauge.
I think the better question might be, “What kind of music do the people who you’re targeting actually like?” That might take a little digging to find out, but it’s critical to know.
I think this makes for some great discussion and thought. I would have some of the same thoughts and questions as Mark Bennardo with the demographics of those downloading the songs from iTunes. In my mind that would have to be examined based on the demographics of the community in which our individual churches are trying to reach.
However at anytime I believe its great for a church to add different elements and styles into their services. This is what I like about what Erwin McManus and Mosaic do, they experiment with different styles, and use a wide range of genres.
My final thought or question right now would be, how accurate or comparable is everyone’s definition of a genre to that of iTunes? What one thinks is rock may be considered Alternative to another. What one thinks is R&B may be considered Pop to another. As you said your poll is not “scientific” so this may produce some differences in numbers. Someone like my parents would not know the differences in a lot of the genres, so a lot of things may be considered “rock” when it is something else to me.
R&B and Rap are hard to translate into a live music format since most of it is looped and processed. Also, I would agree that Rock/Pop is not a good representation of music today in the Church. Adult Contemporary would be better.
A better representation of popularity should be concert ticket sales. Some bands are good in studio but are dogs live. Just a thought. . .
Very interesting so I though I would check out the downloads for across the pond in the uk.
Pop 36%
Alternative 19%
Rock 12%
Dance 10%
Hip Hop Rap 10%
R&B 10%
Electronic 3%
A little more spread but we are still a church that has predominately a pop / rock style.
Growing up in church 20 years ago changing the style of music was a hot topic that caused many a discussion even arguments. The use of drums, guitars and the like was revolutionary then with a desire to be more relevant to the world around us. Maybe we have got a little too complacent.
A more interesting break down for me would be what type of church are you going to that offers a contemporary service (i.e., “seeker church”). Is it suburbia? Is it inner-city? Is it mid-town? I think that just because our “tunes” don’t match that of itunes, it does match, at least in part, our demographics. In addition, we have a more traditional venue to choose from as well.
But ultimately I will say that all music comes from God, it is man who throws the words in.
[...] Morgan had a fascinating post this week about the genres of music we play in church. Here are the results of his informal [...]
[...] partially why I found this post by Tony Morgan to be particularly interesting. There’s a decent discussion going on in the comment thread. [...]
[...] Tony Morgan, one of the “Simply Strategic Guys” had a great post on his blog about music styles. He asks questions like; Are we using the right style of music in our worship to reach our culture with the gospel?, Should we target our music toward the specific group we are trying to reach? (I say a resounding YES!) and Should it really matter. You can read his post here. [...]
the hip hop % are probably young kids to teens, who are probably not in the main service during the praise set.
thus, i would say lets take a poll during a regular congregation setting and check those results
[...] people like hip-hop. What’s amazing, though, is that exactly 0% of the churches that responded tothis surveyindicated that they’re using hip-hop music in their worship services. I’m guessing there are [...]
[...] amazing, though, is that exactly 0% of the churches that responded to this survey indicated that they’re using hip-hop music in their worship [...]
I think that you should play the music that you feel God is leading you to play.