Purpose-driven music

Group, Sep/Oct 2002 by Miller, Steve

YOUTH MINISTRY OUTSIDE THE BOX

Learn from youth ministries around the world how to unleash the power of music in your ministry. The fourth installment in a yearlong series by global youth ministry specialist Steve Miller.

In his #1 best-seller The Closing of the American Mind, University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom wrote, "Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music. Today, a large proportion of young people between the ages of 10 and 20 live for music. It is their passion. Nothing else excites them as it does."

Bloom gets backup from The American Medical Association, whose researchers found the average teenager squeezes in 10,500 hours of music-listening from the day they enter junior high to the day they graduate from high school. That's more than twice the time they spend in school! And, according to the AMA, music exerts an even greater influence on teenagers than television.

Sociologist Serge Denisoff, in a Newsweek article, writes, "If you want to reach young people in this country, write a song, don't buy an ad." Music is the single most powerful force at work in your teenagers' lives. So, how are you using this remarkable tool in your ministry?

Most of us are using a jackhammer to floss our teeth. I mean, we seriously underestimate the tool's power and use it for ridiculously small jobs (for example, as a background filler for real ministry activities). Because of the role it plays in our kids' lives, we must give music a bigger job in our ministry.

music harnessed to a purpose

The worship music tidal wave that washed through the church several years ago spawned a new emphasis on music's role. But the Bible doesn't confine music to a worship niche. In addition to praise (Psalm 43:4), music is used for teaching (Colossians 3:16), confession (Psalm 51), petitioning God (Psalm 3), relating a personal faith story (Psalm 116), and admonishing (Colossians 3:16).

It may be hard for some to stomach, but the Bible puts no restrictions on the role of music in our lives and ministries. That's why it's so ironic that the church has worked hard over the years to limit (and sometimes obliterate) music's place in ministry. We've treated music as a preference, but its real power emerges when it's used in conjunction with a clear purpose.

Effective ministries around the world are unleashing the power of music to fulfill specic ministry objectives. They choose musical styles not by what they personally like but to fulfill a biblical purpose. Their music choices are purpose-driven rather than personal-preference-driven. I think these ministries can help drag us outside our ministry boxes, where we can unleash the power of music for the benefit of the kingdom.

global successes using music

Because the global church lives outside the cultural boundaries that the North American church has erected around music in ministry, it's more willing to let the Bible guide its experiments.

* Regional music festivals generate an excitement and intensity that have more power to attract the unchurched than any other evangelistic strategy. In Slovakia, where evangelicals are rare, the Slovak Network of Youth Ministers plans regional Camp Fest events featuring some great Slovak worship bands. In Zilina, a city where just 200 worship each week in local evangelical churches, 900 young people attended a Camp Fest. No church in Zilina could've attracted so many unchurched folks on their own, but by working together to create a music-based event, they made a big impact on their region.

* Target ministries "become all things to all men" (1 Corinthians 9:22) by using music that speaks the language of the subcultures they're trying to reach. The music styles you choose for ministry activities will determine both who you will reach and who you won't reach. When alternative kids visit typical North American youth ministries, most come away thinking that John 3:16 reads, "For God so loved the preppies. . . " If they accept Christ, they fear they'll be forced to limit their expression of worship to a Passion (mainstream) style.

City Harvest Church in Singapore solved the problem. When Don Roscoe of Grace Community Church in Nashville, Michigan, asked a Singapore resident about visiting this successful ministry, he was asked, "Which gathering do you wish to attend? Loud, louder, or loudest?"

Consider using different music styles for different youth group gatherings. Or, if you don't have the resources to pull that off, arrange to take subculture groups in your ministry to regional Christian concerts that play the styles popular with each subculture.

* Worship evangelism' sounds like an oxymoron at first, but the impact of worship music on unchurched young people is undeniable. The Apostle Paul said we should consider the way we come across to unbelievers in our worship (1 Corinthians 14:23). And the 19th-century evangelist D.L. Moody observed, "If you have singing that reaches the heart, it will fill the church every time." That's why the most popular rock band on the planet-1-12-often tours with the most popular worship band on the planet-Delirious.