Struggling With My Own Middle Age
This lady at my church last night made an interesting comment. She was talking about a local July 4th celebration called "Celebrate Freedom" which is put on by a Christian radio station whose target demographic is the 25--45 age range.
She was talking about the quality of the groups who played and how much she enjoyed them and couldn't figure out why her son, age 13, wasn't all that excited about them. In her defense, the selection of groups was good for their target demographic...they know their audience and got the best for them. Good public relations folks over there at KLTY.
Anyway, she asked if I attended the free all-day festival, to which I replied that I would rather help her and her family move than mess with 180,000 people to hear those particular groups. I may fit the demographic of KLTY but, hey, I cut my musical chops on Iron Maiden/Black Sabbath/AC-DC (which later evolved into the punk revolution, which then hit heavy in the obscure college-radio hit list) so the odds of me getting into anyone that targets the adult contemporary Christian market is not worth the traffic, heat and other festival headaches for me. Granted, 180,000 people loved it, and more power to them...just not my cup of tea. Obviously, I'm far afield from my fellow man when it comes to worship styles, too.
She noted that she was surprised to hear me say that because "most of our church loves that music" and when we played on moderate song last week from the college-age demographic, a lot of people felt we took a pretty big chance of alienating our church's major age group.
I began to wonder why? Isn't the idea of the Body of Christ that everybody gets a seat at the table? I mean, why is it that grownups get so comfy and cozy in their lifestyle that they want the same thing every week? Shouldn't we want to have an entire set of say, classic hymns one week, country/western music one week, "teenage music" one week, contemporary adult stuff one week, kids music the next, etc.? That way, the entire Body of Christ gets their style of worship at some point, while learning to appreaciate Dad's style of worship, Grandma's style, their younger brother's style, etc.
The way I see it, the church shouldn't have a kiddie table, and we'd all grow deeper faster if everybody looked out for everybody else instead of their own comfort zone.
This lady at my church last night made an interesting comment. She was talking about a local July 4th celebration called "Celebrate Freedom" which is put on by a Christian radio station whose target demographic is the 25--45 age range.
She was talking about the quality of the groups who played and how much she enjoyed them and couldn't figure out why her son, age 13, wasn't all that excited about them. In her defense, the selection of groups was good for their target demographic...they know their audience and got the best for them. Good public relations folks over there at KLTY.
Anyway, she asked if I attended the free all-day festival, to which I replied that I would rather help her and her family move than mess with 180,000 people to hear those particular groups. I may fit the demographic of KLTY but, hey, I cut my musical chops on Iron Maiden/Black Sabbath/AC-DC (which later evolved into the punk revolution, which then hit heavy in the obscure college-radio hit list) so the odds of me getting into anyone that targets the adult contemporary Christian market is not worth the traffic, heat and other festival headaches for me. Granted, 180,000 people loved it, and more power to them...just not my cup of tea. Obviously, I'm far afield from my fellow man when it comes to worship styles, too.
She noted that she was surprised to hear me say that because "most of our church loves that music" and when we played on moderate song last week from the college-age demographic, a lot of people felt we took a pretty big chance of alienating our church's major age group.
I began to wonder why? Isn't the idea of the Body of Christ that everybody gets a seat at the table? I mean, why is it that grownups get so comfy and cozy in their lifestyle that they want the same thing every week? Shouldn't we want to have an entire set of say, classic hymns one week, country/western music one week, "teenage music" one week, contemporary adult stuff one week, kids music the next, etc.? That way, the entire Body of Christ gets their style of worship at some point, while learning to appreaciate Dad's style of worship, Grandma's style, their younger brother's style, etc.
The way I see it, the church shouldn't have a kiddie table, and we'd all grow deeper faster if everybody looked out for everybody else instead of their own comfort zone.
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