Ascent Denver

I hear that the new economy will resemble more of a long tail (as on a graph) than a tall skyscraper. As people's interest become more varied, there won't be mass interest in anything anymore. The decline of newspapers and broadcast television are pronounced examples of this phenomenon.

If anything, church worship is mirroring this decline, and Protestant churches struggle to find the right balance, mix, or philosophical commitment to musical form. Mainline churches (United Methodist, many Lutheran denominations, Prebyterian Church USA, etc.) seem to stay stuck in stodgy worship forms that don't give life to the people. But many evangelical churches seem dead (and I mean dead) set on mimicking only what comes across Christian radio. Perhaps there is a better way forward?

I'm not advocating that churches have the ability to be all things to all people, especially in preferred styles of music. But I do think a church service should be intelligible to all people (the appropriate word is "intelligible"- IE a non-Christian may still think praying to an invisible God is weird and uncomfortable, but at least they'll understand it) and challenging and encouraging to Christians, in particular.

I'm thankful to be a part of a church that has this vision for church services, and also a church that has the ability, talent, and willingness to pull off various forms of worship. Our first service is historically Presbyterian and liturgical- offering vibrant worship in the form of traditional (in the post-Reformation, Western European sense) instrumentation: organ, choir, and sometimes brass and strings. Our second service we call "convergent," and not contemporary, because it contains modern instrumentation but it still contains new melodic styles to old hymn texts that are combined with liturgical elements. I have, as a musician, particpated in both services before: trombone in the first service, guitar and keyboard in the second service.

And even in this liturgical bent, we can still rock out. And we will rock out this Sunday evening, January 24, at 6:30pm. If you live in Denver, please consider coming. You might even see yours truly on stage, playing the keyboard.