A couple of months ago, I wrote about “The New Traditional Church.” That particular post focused on the discipleship strategy. I thought I’d pick up where I left off and share a few more characteristics of the new traditional church. Today, I’m going to focus on music.

Remember the days when the only worship music was hymns? We were stuck there because that was clearly the “sacred” style of worship music. Then the 80s hit and Willow Creek made it possible for us to use current music styles in worship services to connect with the unchurched.

Only it’s as if we got stuck in the 80s. While the church still leans on a mix of rock and pop music as the preferred worship genre, our culture has shifted once again. Now, according to iTunes, 1 in 3 of the top 100 songs in the country is either hip-hop/rap or R&B/soul. My guess, though, is that you can’t name a church in the country that’s using these genres of music for worship. Why is that?

Now, before you let your “it’s-not-our-culture” bias set in, consider this. Most of the hip-hop and R&B music has been recorded by black artists. 14% of the U.S. population is black. But, remember, nearly one-third of the music purchased on iTunes is one of these two genres. You do the math. White people like hip-hop.

What’s 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 services. I’m guessing there are several reasons for this:

• The people making decisions about music choices in services don’t prefer this style of music. And, don’t we all know, preferences drive decisions in churches.
• Churches are not hiring worship leaders (or raising up volunteers) who can authentically lead worship with these genres of music.
• Christian artists aren’t recording music that reflects what our culture is listening to.
• Churches don’t know the culture they’re trying to reach. If a third of the country is buying hip-hop or R&B music, you’d think at least one church would be trying to use that style of music to reach those people for Jesus.

Aside from all of that, I think the number one reason why rock and pop is the predominant genre of music in churches is this: our worship music has become the new “hymns” of the new traditional church. In other words, we grew up listening to that kind of worship music. Frankly, we’d rather play our “hymns” in our services than consider what style of music might more effectively connect with people who need Jesus.

So, the bottom line is this. Playing hip-hop or R&B music in our services would make us uncomfortable, and that’s another reason why we are “the new traditional church.”

• 1:07 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is going with the “tucked” look today. He went with the “untucked” look yesterday. He’s very versatile.)
• 1:07 PM tonymorganlive - “Vision is that mental picture of what could be and should be.”
• 1:09 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders like really, really small books.” (That’s true. Publishers haven’t figured that out yet.)
• 1:10 PM tonymorganlive - “State your vision simply.”
• 1:10 PM tonymorganlive - “Memorable is portable.”
• 1:11 PM tonymorganlive - “To make your vision simple, it can’t be complete.”
• 1:13 PM tonymorganlive - Obama’s vision = “Change.”
• 1:15 PM tonymorganlive - “Making vision simple takes a long, long time.”
• 1:18 PM tonymorganlive - “We’re going to create a church that unchurched people love to attend.” = North Point’s original vision
• 1:19 PM tonymorganlive - “We kind of think that all churches should be churches that people like to attend.” (laughter.)
• 1:20 PM tonymorganlive - “We want to make sure they get offended by Jesus, not by everything else we do.”
• 1:21 PM tonymorganlive - “What are you trying to do?”
• 1:22 PM tonymorganlive - “You have to cast vision convincingly.”
• 1:23 PM tonymorganlive - “Your vision needs to be a solution to a problem.”
• 1:24 PM tonymorganlive - “What would go undone if your ministry ceased to exist?”
• 1:26 PM tonymorganlive - “Present the problem. That makes people lean in.”
• 1:27 PM tonymorganlive - “We don’t need another church. We need a different kind of church.”
• 1:28 PM tonymorganlive - “Your vision is a solution to a problem.”
• 1:31 PM tonymorganlive - “You have to explain why and why now.”
• 1:33 PM tonymorganlive - “Repeat vision regularly.”
• 1:35 PM tonymorganlive - (fyi… There are over 100 people watching me take notes live. Too bad I can’t type fast enough to keep up with everything Andy is saying. Sorry.)
• 1:36 PM tonymorganlive - “Celebrate vision systematically. The things that get celebrated get repeated. If you’re a parent, you know this.”
• 1:38 PM tonymorganlive - “Nothing reinvigorates vision like a story.”
• 1:39 PM tonymorganlive - “You can’t argue with a story.”
• 1:42 PM tonymorganlive - ”Where in your world do you celebrate what God has told you to do?”
• 1:42 PM tonymorganlive - “You have to embrace the vision personally. It has to come from your heart. You have to embrace it publicly.”
• 1:46 PM tonymorganlive - “I’ve asked for this to be your lifestyle. I want you to know it’s our lifestyle…and I’ll let you know when it’s not.”
• 1:46 PM tonymorganlive - “New projects, programs and products. New is often a distraction from what’s more important.”
• 1:47 PM tonymorganlive - “Is this an easy, obvious, strategic step toward community?” = how North Point determines whether or not to add something new
• 1:48 PM tonymorganlive - “What are your leaders praying for? That tells you what’s on the leader’s heart.”
• 1:49 PM tonymorganlive - “If there’s no one praying for lost people, that’s a vision issue.”
• 1:53 PM tonymorganlive - “What we’re doing is hard. If it feels like it’s hard, it’s because it’s hard.”
• 1:56 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is really passionate about challenging and encouraging church leaders.)
• 1:59 PM tonymorganlive - Charles Stanley said this to Andy about the leaders gathered here: “What you are doing is so important.”
• 1:59 PM tonymorganlive - “What you are doing is hard, but what you are doing is important.”
• 1:59 PM tonymorganlive - (Thanks for joining me. Pray for these leaders here.)

• 3:46 PM tonymorganlive - “I don’t see things until they happen.” (referring to the song & dance before he spoke.)
• 3:47 PM tonymorganlive - “Systems create behaviors.”
• 3:51 PM tonymorganlive - “Leadership is not about making decision on your own. It’s about owning decisions once they are made.”
• 3:51 PM tonymorganlive - “As leaders, we gravitate to voices we want to hear.”
• 3:52 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders become insulated and isolated…and they like it.”
• 3:54 PM tonymorganlive - “The leader shouldn’t make all the decisions. The leader should just make sure the decisions are good ones.”
• 3:55 PM tonymorganlive - “You are probably not the smartest person in the organization. You’re just the leader.”
• 3:57 PM tonymorganlive - “You have got to create a mechanism to listen to the right people.”
• 3:58 PM tonymorganlive - “What and who you listen to will determine what you do.”
• 3:59 PM tonymorganlive - “Your private decisions will be judged publicly.
• 4:03 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking about the decision process of cutting budgets during the recession.)
• 4:04 PM tonymorganlive - “The more sense of input that people have, the less the push back.”
• 4:05 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders are attracted to environments where ideas and opinions are heard.”
• 4:05 PM tonymorganlive - “If you want great leaders, you need to create systems for listening to great leaders.”
• 4:06 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders want more than assignments. They want input into the decision-making process.”
• 4:07 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders want to influence their own destinies.” [amen.]
• 4:08 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing important to say.”
• 4:09 PM tonymorganlive - (oh my… I hope you’re paying attention. This is good stuff. It’s so true.)
• 4:10 PM tonymorganlive - “The wisest man in the world [King Solomon] had the most to say about getting good counsel.”
• 4:13 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking about the challenges of a highly hierarchical organizational structure.)
• 4:15 PM tonymorganlive - “Eventually a seniority structure leaves the seniors in charge.”
• 4:16 PM tonymorganlive - “Your structure has to change or your structure will impede information flow.”
• 4:20 PM tonymorganlive - “I don’t want anyone to live with the frustration that I used to live with in the lower levels of the organization.”
• 4:20 PM tonymorganlive - “You have to rethink your systems.”
• 4:21 PM tonymorganlive - “Please don’t live with an organizational structure that impedes information flow.”
• 4:23 PM tonymorganlive - (I could listen to this type of leadership, systems thinking all day long. Great stuff.)
• 4:23 PM tonymorganlive - “You want the best thinkers and the most strategic people at the table with you.”
• 4:24 PM tonymorganlive - “Fairness ended in the Garden of Eden. Never shoot for fair. When you shoot for fair, you’ll be unjust. Shoot for right.”
• 4:27 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking through North Point’s current organizational structure.)
• 4:28 PM tonymorganlive - “You need to listen deep in your organization. That doesn’t mean you have to meet with everyone in the organization.”
• 4:32 PM tonymorganlive - (Now Andy is talking about how he connects with about 150 volunteers on a quarterly basis.)
• 4:34 PM tonymorganlive - “Resist the urge to lead every meeting you attend.”
• 4:34 PM tonymorganlive - “What we don’t want to hear is generally what we need to hear.”
• 4:35 PM tonymorganlive - “The people we don’t want to hear from are the people we often need to hear from most.”
• 4:36 PM tonymorganlive - (Session is concluding. Battery is dying. Continue the conversation and questions. I’ll catch up with you later.)

In case you missed them, here are the posts that generated the most traffic last month in order of popularity:

1. My New Adventure
2. Highway to Hell?
3. Highway to Hell…Greenville Version
4. 10 Jobs I’d Consider Taking Now that I Don’t Work at a Church
5. The Ugliest Church Website
6. More Details on My Next Steps
7. 25 Free Web Apps That Make Life Easier
8. Catalyst West: Andy Stanley
9. New Topic for Today
10. Catalyst West: Guy Kawasaki

This top ten list is brought to you with the help of Google Analytics. It’s the easy, free way to track stats for your website.

Over the last several days, I’ve started gearing up for the sticks conference in Canton, Georgia on May 12-13. I’m teaching a session, and it’s starting to go in a completely new direction. Can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.

The funny part about the sticks event is that I’m teaching the session right after Perry. That’s right. I get to follow one of the best communicators in the country. I can’t wait to see the faces of the audience once I take the platform, and they realize I can’t talk like Perry. I may take a picture of their stunned and dazed looks.

In case you haven’t heard about the sticks:

• Perry, Ed Stetzer, Gary Lamb, Charles Hill and Greg Oraham are joining me on the main sessions.
• There are additional breakouts with some other really cool people. (Rumor has it that Los will be there.)
• It’s being hosted by Revolution Church, a portable church located in the sticks. The conference sessions will be in the facility Revolution uses on Sundays.
• The Revolution band will be leading worship.
• The conference is only $99.

If you want to join me and my friends, you can still register and participate in all the fun. Hope to see you in Canton in a couple of weeks.

Had a great conversation with Kem today. She knows me, so she was trying to beat some sense into me.

We served together in ministry for a number of years, so she knows some stuff that others do not. She confirmed some things about me that I already knew. She didn’t pull any punches on the stuff that needs to be refined. God’s still doing a work in me. I think God uses people like Kem to do some of that work faster.

In our conversation, she reminded me of this. These are her words:

Leaders are not normal. They are:

• the strong
• the rebels
• the skeptical
• the intelligent
• the independent
• the positive deviants

Try to control these people, and you’ll never be able to rally their potential. Try to normalize these people, and you’ll never be able to sustain their positive impact.

That’s why Kem is one of the wisest people I know. She puts into simple language some of the most difficult concepts for us to grasp.

Leadership is complicated. Leading leaders is even more complicated.

I still don’t know how to do it. I’m still learning. If you get this figured out before I do, will you let me know?

Earlier this week, I posted the 10 Jobs I’d Consider Taking Now that I Don’t Work at a Church. I thought it might be helpful for you to also see the jobs that I would never consider taking no matter how much you paid me. With that, here are the:

10 Jobs that I Will Never Take

1. Dentist
2. Wal-Mart greeter
3. Yard boy
4. Proctologist
5. Country music singer
6. Personal trainer
7. Missionary to Nebraska
8. Cliff diver
9. Clown
10. NASCAR mechanic

Again, you can determine what this list says about who I am. Or, feel free to share your own list.