Here is an updated flow chart from Old Testament to New Testament, to help lift churches out of limiting themselves to entertainment styles of worship.
I think many people would agree that there is no experience better than singing in a church, with a congregation, and where everyone wants to sing. Can you imagine singing in a church where 70% or more of the congregation sings all the time! What a concept to be singing in a room where you know that your voice is contributing along with everyone else’s. Singing in unison or in harmony sounds just as heavenly and exciting—singing in a church where it sounds just as good with or without musical instruments contributing or leading the worship. Many people dream of such a church sanctuary that performs like this. Do such worship spaces exist? Can a church be transformed into having such qualities?
When only 20 to 30% of a congregation is singing, and the rest are passively swaying to the music, some with hands in the air and others almost dancing on the spot, is that the kind of worship the Bible describes? Why don’t more people sing? Is it because of the music, the hymns, the sound system, or could it be because the room is not able to support the kind of congregational singing described in the Bible? If the room can’t support good congregational singing, that becomes an acoustics issue, and when most churches try to fix their worship spaces, they often kill the room to make the sound system perform better which makes the congregational singing worse – never better.
Evidence shows that it is easier for a church to resort to an entertainment style of worship because the secular community has not demonstrated any method of fixing the congregational singing issue in existing churches, and new churches opening these days are void of such performance qualities. That then begs the question, is the entertainment style of worship honoring God?
In the Bible, there are no examples of musical instruments leading the singing, rather, the instruments followed the singing of the people. When there is a worship team performing in most churches, the worship leader prompts the congregation to sing, and the performers who play instruments, follow the lead singers, not the congregation. Often it is because they can’t hear the congregation singing at all, and they use floor or IEM monitors to follow the lead singers. The reason the musicians and singings can’t hear the congregation is because of a room problem. This creates a room full of people passively worshiping rather than actively worshiping. That is not much different from going to a music concert. Is worship in music as long or longer than the sermon?
What does the Bible say about any of this? God designed a house of worship in the Old Testament. Why? Why didn’t God leave it up to David or Solomon to design something that they wanted? Why was God so heavy-handed and specific to its design. Was this house of worship to be a relic of the past, something for the future – and something for the present?
If the temple was to be a relic, then why are there so many specific details? Why were those details preserved for over 3500 years? What if in those details are solutions to many of the problems many churches have today – not just with sound problems, but other issues churches struggle with today?
Study the flow chart. See what happens when 3500 years of history collide with science. If there are any errors, let me know. This work is a result of 27 years of fixing and documenting over 300 churches with another 100 plus churches that copied from the 50 church examples posted who informed me of their successes and from studying over1400 churches since 1983. Visit my blog if you want to know more about the results in following God’s way to design churches and manage sound.
Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics 