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Author – Ginny Chilton Maxwell is Music Minister at Church of the Ascension in Norfolk, Virginia, where she serves as organist, choirmaster, and elementary music teacher.

I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately. At work I lament that I flubbed my postlude or that a new hymn went over like a lead balloon. At home sometimes I can’t seem to comfort the baby, and my dining room floor is covered in about a quarter inch of Cheerio dust. So I was energized to read the latest newsletter from the Center for Congregational Song, which talks about “success” and what that means to us who serve Christ. “So ultimately,” it says, “the answer to ‘how will we know we’ve been successful?’ is that we’re not 100% successful until God’s kingdom comes. Until then, we work and we sing!” Yes, Amen! This message came at a perfect time in my life. In this blog post are some ways my work in congregational song has taught me to celebrate failure as a necessary and even healthy part of that work. Maybe you’ll see yourself in some of my reflections and be able to share your experiences below.

I start to wonder if this decline is a reflection on me; if I was a flashier performer or a more charismatic leader, would things be better?

Failures piling up…

Perhaps the thing that has been most persuasive concerning the power of failure is that I now basically work full time with very small children. Children under five are extremely active. I now pack more in before 9 am than I used to in a whole day! So, there are plenty of opportunities for failure. How many songs have I tried to teach them that never caught on? How many music classes went by where I struggled to keep my students focused? As I began reflecting, I realized that I was keeping better track of my failures than my successes. Though it feels like my failures are piling up, it is actually because of them that I’ve become a better musician, a better curator of songs, and a better teacher. I am where I am today because I have failed so many times!

I found myself in that moment giving thanks to God for my failure. I was reminded of one of my favorite passages in Second Corinthians, where Paul tries to explain to his readers what it means to boast in Christ: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses…. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10. I’ve always liked this passage because Paul isn’t just saying, “It’s okay to be weak,” or “Be weak if you have to.” He’s really rejoicing in weakness! When I fail I am reminded to rely more fully on God’s grace, and I realize how much I need God and the support of other people. It is humbling and strengthening. It also gives me a chance to learn from my mistakes–if I’m not making mistakes, I’m probably not being bold enough each day.

“It used to be so much better than it is now…”

Failing to teach a song or manage a classroom of children is one kind of failure, but working in a declining church feels like another thing entirely. I know there are people reading this blog who work or worship in a mainline Protestant church, or another church that is experiencing decline. It can be deflating to worship with too few people in your sanctuary, to not see many young people darken your door or have many new members join your choir. I know I start to feel worn down when I have to constantly listen to parishioners talk about how much better things used to be. I start to wonder if this decline is a reflection on me; if I was a flashier performer or a more charismatic leader, would things be better?

I’m thankful for places like the Center for Congregational Song that remind me to put things in perspective: I didn’t decide to serve the church in order to make myself look good or to amass successes. I became a music minister because I want to serve Christ who came to earth because he was so crazy in love with each and every one of us. God calls us to emulate Jesus, whose entire life was lived out only for others, never for himself. As leaders and participants in congregational song, we work and we sing and we leave the rest to God. I’m reminded of another favorite Bible passage, Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” Prosperity and adversity will come and go, successes and failures will come and go; God remains God, and our call to serve God will be the same in every circumstance. Amen!

Sin(g) Boldly!

I was highly entertained by reading the blog post from May 16th, “A Profound Silence,” in which Brian Hehn describes performing John Cage’s 4’33” in his church’s worship service. Brian tells the story from when he first got the idea through the performance and the feedback, which was mixed: some snark, some gratitude. I appreciate that Brian blogged about something with such a real life outcome in a culture that tends to only want to publish filtered and polished success stories. This wasn’t a conventional success story, but I think it was still successful. It sounds like the Spirit spoke to Brian, he acted on it, and now he’s learned something from what did and didn’t go well. As I embrace failure and read stories like this, I’m reminded to sin(g) boldly and to act more on the Spirit’s leadership than on fear. I’m also reminded to focus more on building God’s Kingdom than on tallying my successes at the end of the day. Finally, I’m thankful to have a tribe like the folks I know through the Center for Congregational Song to remind me why I do this work. We work and we sing!

For more blogs by Ginny and the rest of our blog team, go to our main blog page.

Guest Blogger Ryan Flanigan is a liturgical folks artist and church music director at All Saints Church Dallas where this story of intergernational worship occurs. As an artist rooted in the Christian Story, Ryan works to create beautiful and believable sacred music for the sake of the world. He believes the church can be a credible witness of God’s beauty, truth and goodness to the whole world, not just Christians. Ryan lives in Dallas TX with his wife Melissa and their three kids Lily, Liam, and Noelle. He is the founder of Liturgical Folk and a core team member of United Adoration.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)

The Coffee Shop

One Friday in late July my wife Melissa and I, along with our three young kids, got in the minivan and, as we do every Friday summer morning, headed to the coffee shop. The coffee shop is the epicenter of our neighborhood life. Without compromising the aesthetic of craft coffee culture, the owner, who also has young kids, built his coffee shop with the whole neighborhood in mind, not only hipster Millennials. He did not necessarily design it to be family-friendly; he just built a very good and pleasant place to gather. Sure enough, people of all ages flock there. For a couple hours that Friday morning we engaged naturally in conversation after conversation with neighbors coming and going, babies being passed around, and kids circling us playfully. It is always a truly unmanufactured intergenerational experience.

From the coffee shop we headed to lunch at the home of an older couple, spiritual parents to Melissa and me and honorary grandparents to our kids. We shared in a delightful spread of fruit salad, chicken salad, quinoa salad, potato salad, every kind of salad except salad, and homemade cinnamon rolls. The kids ran around in the beautiful backyard garden and, when it got too hot, came inside for crafts with the moms, while the men exchanged philosophical thoughts. Then we sat and listened to endearing stories, some of them for the second or third time, of the last half century of our mentors’ life together. Another unforced intergenerational experience.

Worship Wars

The worship wars have been wreaking havoc on the modern church for decades. As a result intergenerational relationships have suffered. Attempts at accommodating differing worship preferences have only widened this relational gap. It is not uncommon for a church to offer separate worship services for kids, students, contemporary worshipers, and traditional worshipers, each with its own music style and spatial aesthetic. Even midweek groups are often segregated into common interests or life stages. Although these strategies appear to be helping churches by increasing Sunday attendance, they may actually be stunting the spiritual growth of churchgoers.

Every generation plays an important role in human formation and flourishing. Before we receive an individual identity, we inherit a familial identity. – Ryan Flanigan

The accommodation of preferences is rooted in the cultural values of consumerism and individualism. Of course the generations are divided; we all prefer different things. And despite the good intentions of leaders to attract worshipers by making them feel comfortable and undistracted, catering to their culturally-formed personal preferences is at cross-purposes with the gospel. The gospel calls us to lay down our own preferences and to prefer others instead (Mark 8-10). Christian worship is all about deference, not preference, modeled for us in our sacrificial Savior Jesus Christ himself (Philip. 2). Worship at its best is a rehearsal of the sacrificial life, and yet in many cases it has become another provider of goods and services. Nothing has contributed to generational division more than this.

Life and Liturgy

As I narrated in the story above, our everyday lives are intergenerational. Every generation plays an important role in human formation and flourishing. Before we receive an individual identity, we inherit a familial identity. Extended families are made up of three or four, sometimes five, living generations supporting one another and carrying on family traditions and stories. As Christians, we are extended families on mission with God. We need the active presence of all generations in order to be the family God has called us to be, to embody the Faith, and to carry on our Story in the world. Christian worship is the gathering, equipping, feeding, and sending of families to do life together on mission with God.

I am part of a liturgical church. Liturgy simply means “service of the people.” Paul uses it in Romans 12 to describe the spiritual “service” of offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God. Liturgical practices offer tangible means by which the generations are united in worship. One of my favorite moments of our liturgy is when my children run up to the communion rail to join me in receiving the body and blood of Christ. One Sunday my son knelt down, extended his hands to receive, and said, “Look dad, I’m making a manger.” The old woman to my left started chuckling, and I was inspired by the incarnation illustration my son had just unknowingly given us.

The liturgy brings out the physical nature of our worship, without which our worship can become a strictly cognitive or abstract exercise. Physical symbols and actions ensure that our bodies are engaged. Kneeling, praying, and singing in unison draws us into communion with one another and with God. This is especially important for children. Jesus was clear with his disciples to let the children come to him (Mark 10). When the children are left out, kingdom values go away. When kingdom values go away, cultural values take over. We begin to conform our worship to the things of the world, which is the antithesis of spiritual liturgy (Rom. 12). So Paul urges us, children included, to offer our bodies together in sacrificial life and liturgy.

Music Unites

Music is vital to Christian worship. It’s no wonder, then, that music is near the heart of the worship wars. The generations divide along fault lines of stylistic preference. When music is commodified to serve the people, it becomes entertainment. Music is supposed to be a service of the people, not a service to the people. This paradigm shift will help us defer our own musical tastes in worship and to consider what makes others sing. It will take a willingness for mutual appreciation, but in time our hearts will blend into one. A church may even discover its own unique musical expression!

Life is a bell curve of simplicity and complexity. The most unifying songs and rhythms noticeably engage the youngest and oldest among us. If we aim for the people in the middle, those whose lives are most cluttered and noisy, they may connect with the music, but it will be hard for everyone else to participate. Familiarity is the way to go with liturgical music. Familiar doesn’t mean that we need to dumb it down; it means we’re bringing it down to earth, making the music more accessible and the work of the people more doable.

What this looks like at All Saints Dallas is children, parents, empty nesters, singles, and students all singing alongside one another. We usually sing thirteen songs per service, including ancient hymns, contemporary choruses, folk spirituals, and new service music. Each song supports the liturgy in some way. Key signatures and melodic ranges are intentionally chosen to enable ease of congregational singing. Rhythms and arrangements are contextualized to what best engages our people, especially the old and young. And we have indeed discovered our own unique sound as a church.

Liturgical Folk

Our music, which we call Liturgical Folk, is a truly intergenerational project. You can read all about it in the Dallas Morning News article, “Let us bow our heads in poetry,” and you can hear what it sounds like on our albums, Liturgical Folk, Vols. 1 & 2. Volume 1 is called Table settings, and consists of singable settings of historic prayers for churches and families. My wife and kids sing on it. Volume 2 is called Edenland and consists of new hymns written by a seventy-five year old in our church and myself. He wrote the words, and I wrote the tunes.

Conclusion

Robert Webber said that the greatest internal threat to Christian worship is cultural accommodation. When churches become providers of goods and services, generations divide and intergenerational relationships suffer. There is much more we could talk about, such as the dwindling percentage of churchgoing college students who grew up in age-segregated churches. I have chosen to highlight from my own experiences how liturgy and music can help bridge the generational divides. There really shouldn’t be a disconnect between our church life and our everyday life. What we do in worship should train us in our everyday lives, helping us carry on the Story of God in flourishing intergenerational relationships.

Read our other blogs!

Guest Blogger Ryan Flanigan

Author – Ginny Chilton Maxwell is Music Minister at Church of the Ascension in Norfolk, Virginia, where she serves as organist, choirmaster, and elementary music teacher.

On Easter Day we celebrate that Jesus came back to life, but starting the day after Easter most of us in ministry, and music ministry specifically, feel anything but lively. Easter is meant to be more than just one day; in Western Christianity, at least, it’s a whole fifty days of celebrating. But how many of us actually treat the seven weeks after Easter as the festival season it is? In many of the churches in which I’ve worked and worshiped, we tend to take a few days or even the whole week after Easter off, and the rest of the Easter season never really regains its momentum. We’re exhausted, for goodness sakes, and our worship tends to suffer for it. This doesn’t seem to reflect the reality of the resurrection. What can we as musicians do to be more faithful to the spirit of Easter, without overtaxing ourselves and the people we work with?

The more we get together, the happier we’ll be…

The Sunday after Easter can often be a bit of a downer, not only because we’re all still recovering from Easter, but because many of us have to go from a very full church back to our usual, often much lower, number of worshipers. One thing that worked particularly well for my church this year was to plan a worship service with other churches in our neighborhood for the Sunday after Easter. Granted, ecumenical worship services can take a lot of effort to execute. But I found that with three music ministers working together, we were able to divide and conquer and not leave anyone with too much to do. With someone there to conduct, I could focus on the organ, and we had plenty of singers to fill the choir loft and make the anthem sound full.

I have to say, I’d forgotten how much having children around makes each holiday feel so special.

The nave, too, was full of worshipers to make the hymns and responses quite hardy. What’s more, it feels faithful to the good news of Jesus to break down our denominational barriers and worship as one. What better time to proclaim that message than during the Easter season.

On the road again…

For those of us who are church musicians, most of our work is for events that occur within the four walls of the church. What would happen if we took our show on the road for one or more of the weeks of Eastertide? The music is already learned; why not perform it a few more times in a location other than your church sanctuary? If your church is in a downtown or other highly visible location, consider doing some of the music you worked so hard on for Easter out on the front steps or the front lawn. You could even do the whole worship service outside, weather permitting, at your usual Sunday morning time. If your church is affiliated with a school or nursing home, ask if you can perform the anthem or other special Easter music at their weekly worship service. Or, team up with the school’s music teacher and make music class that week a special Easter “concert,” complete with a tour of the organ and an opportunity to sit with choir members and follow along with the music as they sing. Some of these options will be relatively easy to execute; others require more planning than most of us want to do the week after Easter. But I think you’ll find that just by changing the scenery you’ll be able to extend the life of the music you performed on Easter Sunday, and keep the Easter season alive while you’re at it.

Won’t someone think of the children?

In the past three years I’ve had two children and started a job that involves working at the school affiliated with my church. I have to say, I’d forgotten how much having children around makes each holiday feel so special. Children have an enthusiasm for celebrations and traditions that is infectious to the rest of us. Easter Sunday may not be a good time for the children’s choir to sing, but it’s perfectly appropriate to have them sing an Easter song on the Sunday(s) after Easter. Small children delight in having songs to sing that go with whatever season it is, so even if you’re working with children in a less formal setting than a choir, you can keep singing your resurrection songs all through the season. (Sidebar: I’ve found there aren’t enough Easter songs to satisfy the appetites of young children. Which Easter songs do your children love?) You might find that you have more opportunity to discuss the true meaning of Easter with the children once the Easter bunny has faded away, too.

The Easter Season is meant to be one of overflowing joy and celebration. What do you find helps you maintain the spirit of Easter through the whole season?

For more blogs by author Ginny Chilton, check out all our blogs here.

Abandoning “Success:” Embracing the Kingdom