Blended Worship at the Christian Music Summit

Blended Worship - mixing the contemporary worship music with the hymns. I was interested in this session with Scott Wesley Brown and Bill Smiley (of Whiteheart fame). The chapel at Overlake Christian Church (Seattle) holds about 600 people and it was close to full. The conference took place in November 2006.

I was interested because I think our church has a blended worship style (Chris Tomlin, Brian Doerksen, Hillsongs) and hymns into each worship service.

Scott Wesely Brown (who, by the way is about 5' tall) started off by telling us about a blended worship project he is working on. A group of 15 worship pastors, including himself, Bill and others like Aaron Schust are working on a blended worship project. They go into the hills of Alabama (or somewhere down south) to a retreat centre where they "blend" hymns.

Here's what I understood this to mean....
Scott said that one of the reasons that those who worship with hymns don't enjoy worship in the 21st century context is because they have a different "goal" in their worship.

Here's what he meant - when you sing a hymn, you are primarily standing before God declaring to Him what you know to be true. He called this "declarative worship". "Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father...", etc.

When you sing a worship song that is in the contemporary (I hate using that word because it sounds so '80's' to me) vein, you are worshipping God through an experience of His presence in your life. "Experiential worship" rather than "declarative worship". "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, as we wait upon the Lord. Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord..." - Chris Tomlin

Scott and his group of worship pastors have been "blending" the two kinds of worship styles - declarative and experiential - with the goal of getting both sides to expand their worship experiences. How are they doing this?

Primarily by writing bridges that go between the verses of the hymns. So, you sing a verse declaring the truth of who God is, your status as a believer, etc. and then you sing a bridge that pours our your love for God, your experience of Him and invites His Spirit to touch your life at that moment.

Scott also touched on the challenges of hymns for female singers - there is a clear loss of corporate worship power once the melody goes above a high "C" - most women can't sing above that and a congregation can easily lose half of the worship momentum by singing above that note. A lot of hymns are written with the melody above this high "C" making it difficult for women to sing powerfully when they are worshipping. I had never thought of this, but once he said it, it rang true for me.

Following the session, Scott and Bill had a concert of blended worship that was recorded for a live album.

The team who are writing blended hymns are taking many rich lyrics that have been forgotten and writing new melodies for them - adding bridges / choruses and creating new worship songs from the hymns that are being forgotten.

Here are some blended worship hymns that are getting air time on the Christian stations in North America:

Aaron Shust, My Savior, My God: www.aaronshust.com
Chris Rice, Untitled Hymn: www.chrisrice.com
Michael W. Smith, Ancient Words: www.michaelwsmith.com (Worship Again album)
Chris Tomlin / Matt Redman: The Wonderful Cross