I wish I knew how to create a poll, because that's what I really want.

I'm curious about (a) what denomination(s) people are, and, (b) what kind of music is going on in those denominations' worship services, including (c) instrumentation.

For example: I'm Episcopalian, and we have mostly traditional hymns with some modern praise songs as well. In the Modern stuff, we sing music by Marty Haugen, Graham Kendrick, etc. Accompaniment is organ mostly, with some piano.

Can others comment on styles used in their worship? Just curious ... I'm not saying one is better than another. I just want to see what others are doing out there.

I am a worship leader at a non-denominational church. The instruments we use depend upon the service and the type of music we will be playing for that particular service. We have keyboards/synths, drums/percussion instruments, guitars (acoustic/electric/bass), as well as prerecorded videos with lyrics in the event we have several members of our praise team missing and need it.

We play all sorts of music: old hymns, southern gospel, and pretty much anything you'd hear on stations like KLOVE. We don't do any heavy metal for the simple reason that it's not a style I do well. If we had a praise team member who could handle it in a worshipful rather than showmanship manner, I would not be uncomfortable with it.

Our worship services are about lifting up the Lord. They are not about what we like or don't like. We do try to mix it up in order to give everyone an opportunity to worship in a manner they are comfortable with though.

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Romans 8:6 - The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace

Juliana: Thanks for your input. Do you do some of the old-fashioned hymns, like from the 18th and 19th centuries, or is it all more modern in varying styles?

I think it's awesome that you provide such a variety.

Im a United Methodist and we have a traditional service in the morning with hymns and everything and then a contemporary service for college kids at night with modern praise and worship like oh how he loves us and lead me to the cross. The early service has a pipe organ and the late service has a full band

Awesome.

Would you say it's mostly "old farts" (like me) who go to the traditional service, and/or mostly younguns who go to the more modern one? Do some people go to both?

most of us college kids go to both though none of the older crowd goes at night

We do some of the very old hymns once in a great while. We have also updated some of the arrangements for them. The lyrics are simply too good not to share with younger generations and updating the arrangements is one way to get the kids to listen.

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Romans 8:6 - The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace

Well, TheGrungeDiva,

I'm glad you made a poll like this because it helps people get a flavor of what's going on in our churches.

I am Methodist. Depending on which service, part of the country, or church your in, we have mostly traditional hymnty as prepared in the Methodist Hymnal which is elected and ratified by both state conferences and the general conference, without getting into too much of our hierarchy, lol.

These hymns are generally accompanied by a choir, organ, and piano.

Now, there are many Methodist churches (such as ours) that have modern or contemporary services as well.

I'm the worship leader of our modern service, the Gathering. In this service we have guitar and Jim-be, and sing anything from revamped hymns to the music your currently listening to on K-Love, AirOne, or any other Christian radio station.

^_^ I've been a part of larger churches that have full rock band set ups with the whole Hillsong-type thing going on too.

*Edit: Also, in reading your posts with Megatron, I express that we have all ages in both our traditional and modern services.

Both our services, well three really, are on Sunday morning. We experimented at a previous time with say, Friday or Saturday night. This received a fair turn out, but we found that Sunday morning remains the most effective for attracting people to come.

I hope this helps you in your inquiry.

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Thank you, yes. I'm familiar with the Methodist hymnal, and they have a "supplemental" hymnal as well -- Isn't it called "This Faith We Sing"?

Thanks for posting.

Why yes, yes it is. I'm glad to see you've dabbled in a bit of Methodology, lol. ^_^

All that aside, we're one body in Christ, regardless of denomination. In the words of Bicentennial Man, "One is glad to be of service."

__________________
Scripture teaches us many things, and one of those being the importance of relationships. If you would like, you can visit my Facebook page here.

Though a continual work-in-progress, you can listen to my music on Myspace here.

Remember.......YOU'RE AWESOME!!!

Wow Julianna, We have a lot in common!

I am also the worship leader at an inter-denominational church. We do most styles of music, minus the metal and hip hop. Most weeks we have a pleasant mixture of Hymns and contemporary. We have a number of different backing musicians, sometimes a piano, sometimes guitar and drums, sometimes we do the entire worship service a capella. As long as the music gives God glory, I include it!

I go to an Assemblies of God church and have helped out with worship stuff since I started going to church. It's evolved from primarily hymns with a choir and a piano to having a lot more variety in sound. On a typical Sunday there are 2 services, the early service having hymns with a piano, guitar, and a few vocals. The later service has some more contemporary stuff, like Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, some stuff written by people in the church, and stuff you'd hear on the radio with a few modernized hymns thrown in. That band usually consists of piano, keys, an acoustic guitar, 2 electric guitars, bass, congas and auxiliary percussion, a drum kit, and a few vocals. But it's also not at all unusual for things to be switched up-we like to have acoustic sets with a few guitars, congas, and a djembe or break out the wind instruments with a brass quartet. Sometimes we even use a modified organ, complete with a spinning leslie!

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"When you are in deep water, it's a good idea to keep your mouth shut."- St. Louis Tribune

Baptist here.

We sing mostly "traditional" hymns. The stuff in the hymnal. I put traditional in quotes because if you check the dates on the songs, some of them are a lot newer than you might think. I don't know if I could call a song from the 1980s traditional lol

Just about every Sunday, someone does a solo performance. Sometimes they're classics, sometimes they're things I've never heard before (but I don't know how 'contemporary' they are). They are usually accompanied by someone at the piano, but sometimes they'll play a music track off a CD. I can think of only one occasion in the last few years where a younger person went up to sing something obviously contemporary. No idea what the song was, but it was nice. We have a couple men in the choir with really great classic country-style voices. They could sing just about anything and it would sound old timey.

We rock a piano and a keyboard in our services. Sometimes someone will pick up a guitar, but that's really rare.

Our services are like 80% music. I've seriously never been to a church that sings so much! Our pastor and worship leader are good about working together so the songs we sing are relevant to the Bible Study/sermon. Also, they're really smart about playing 'the hits' that you don't need the hymnal for and working in songs we're less familiar with. Our worship leader is like a church music encyclopedia, so he'll share stories about the new songs he's introducing. It's pretty fun, actually. But... I like that stuff.

If I'm getting my terminology right, we are not what would ever in a million years be considered a "modern church." Hence the noticeable absence of a particular age group *cough*

Awww... I wish my church was like those listed above.

[quote=Bridget_in_China;528612]Wow Julianna, We have a lot in common!

I am also the worship leader at an inter-denominational church. We do most styles of music, minus the metal and hip hop. Most weeks we have a pleasant mixture of Hymns and contemporary. We have a number of different backing musicians, sometimes a piano, sometimes guitar and drums, sometimes we do the entire worship service a capella. As long as the music gives God glory, I include it![/quote]

Yessssssssssssssssssssssss

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Romans 8:6 - The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace

Pentecostal with Holy Spirit leadings. Hymns and some choruses but nothing contemporary. If it was contemprary no one would sing and singing would turn into a platform performance. Old and young married and a few teens make up the audience. But great worship.

I am a United Methodist we do the songs from our methodist hymnal. Wish we did more praise and woriship type of music. we did that when our next to the last pastor was here.We had a praise and woriship team.

Greetings,

I am a Reformed Baptist and we sing the traditional Baptist Hymns as well as some Biblical 'contemporary' music also. Outside of the formal gathering I listen to Christian Hip-Hop, Blues and Jazz.

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May grace and peace be continually upon the elect of God,
DiscipleWilliam