Music Isn’t the Issue…
I just finished a book by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer called “Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it.” This book interacts with the data received after surveying young adults in their 20’s and 30’s who are currently not attending church. Ham and Beemer wanted to see why young adults today are leaving the church after they get out of their parent’s homes, and his findings are rather interesting. While the purpose of this blog is not to focus on the main point of Ham and Beemer’s book I would HIGHLY recommend getting a copy and reading it for yourself. It is insightful and relevent to the state of our churches and nation as a whole and where we will be in just 1-2 generations. We need to open our eyes and stop burying our heads in the sand!
To the point of this post, Ham and Beemer’s book indicated that the reason young adults are leaving the church does NOT have to do with the music in the church. If you attend an Evangelical/Bible church of any denomination on a regular basis and are aware of the decisions that go into what music will and will not be included in the service you know that this can be a HUGE issue. Churches argue and split over what style music should be used, what instruments should be allowed, etc.
In an effort to make church more appealing and relevant to the young people who attend, churches have migrated toward a more contemporary musical style and instrumentation, closely mimicking what goes on in the secular music culture. Why? In most cases it’s because they think that’s what young people are looking for. They want to engage the young adults and kids that are growing up in their churches. Sometimes they are counting numbers, and in order to keep their number high they think that they need to adapt their music to fit what they know these young adults and kids are receiving in the secular world.
However, Ham and Beemer’s research discovered that this is NOT what they are looking for in church. In fact a very small percentage of those surveyed said that they left because they didn’t like the music. Ham and Beemer identified that the majority of young adults left the church because they either saw the church or the Bible as irrelevent to their lives. (These by the way, are two very distinct reasons that Ham and Beemer explain at length in their book.) Why did they view the church or the Bible as irrelevant? The former group claimed that the church is hypocritical and the latter group claimed that the Bible couldn’t be reconciled with science (my own generalization and paraphrase of each group’s answers).
So what does this have to do with music? Well, a lot! If churches are spending so much time discussing, reorganizing and arguing about the music that’s in the church in order to meet the needs of its congregation then it is clearly focusing on the wrong thing! Let’s also look at how much time is spent in a typical service on music. Ham and Beemer suggest that music is not even required to be in a church service, yet sometimes the music portion of the service is longer than the message that the pastor brings. Do we have our priorities out of line? It seems so! As a musician I am not arguing that we do away with music in the church, or that it’s not important to praise God through music in our services. What I am saying is that we need to reevaluate our priorities if we want to keep the church around for another generation.
I would encourage you to read “Already Gone” for yourself and see why most young adults leaving the church, were already gone in elementary, middle school, or high school. They may have physically been present, but mentally and spiritually they were gone. Why? In a nutshell, church attempts to feed the spiritual person, but totally neglects the mental instruction of their congregation. You can’t accept the spiritual things if you are not properly taught on the natural things of this world first. That’s why Ken Ham has dedicated his life to the book of Genesis and defending the Biblical truth found therein. “Already Gone” is a must read!
Emily Williams is the creator of Strategic Strings: An Online Course for Violin and Viola Teachers
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After going to catholic schools for 12+ years I can completely understand why kids don’t go to church! In my experience I felt that not only the church, but the teachers as well were very hypocritical. It was really sickening actually.
Ann—The experience you had is what a lot of kids are having and I agree it is sickening. This isn’t how it should be, and it doesn’t have to be this way. The Bible is relevant because God made it that way. We are still going to be held accountable. The church should be relevant because it represents God and his Word. What type of things did you feel the church and teachers were most hypocritical about?
Michael and I just finished reading that book a few months ago. It was a great book. It’s a definite must read especially for anyone who is teaching young people. I enjoyed reading your comments.
Charity – thanks for reading and commenting!
Ben and I just recently came across another piece of material on the subject, specifically focused on age segregated worship and programs. The movie was free online when we saw it. I think it still is if you go here: http://dividedthemovie.com/
If you guys enjoyed the book you will probably enjoy, and find this movie useful too!