A question we often get, but haven't been able to answer--until now--is about the nature of Presbyterian worship services. In particular, folks want to know whether such services are "contemporary" or "traditional." So we asked elders about that on a recent (May 2000) Presbyterian Panel survey first about the music, then about the service more generally.
More than half of elders (51 percent) describe the music at the last service they attended as traditional, while 8 percent describe it as contemporary. The rest, 41 percent, chose the option "a blend or mix" (see the Figure).
We get similar results when we asked more generally about the style of the most recent worship service. Overall, 61 percent labeled it as traditional to a great extent, and 34 percent, to some extent. Only 5 percent responded little or no extent. Few services, then, seem to have embraced contemporary worship to the exclusion of older styles, at least in the perceptions of elders. In fact, by this accounting, the majority of services remain traditional, although a sizeable number have some contemporary elements blended in.
What does this mean in terms of actual practices? Services adjudged to be traditional to a great extent are also more likely to be described as, to a great extent:
. . . and less likely to be described as:
However, elders describe more traditional and less traditional services similarly in terms of several other qualities:
Style of worship is related to how the elders experience worship. Specifically, elders who describe the most recent service they attended as traditional to a great extent were more likely than other elders to also indicate that, to a great extent, the service:
These differences are small, but statistically significant, giving confidence that they are not just an artifact of the Panel sample but exist among PCUSA elders generally. We must be careful in interpreting them, however, for an entirely different reason. Since people have considerable choice in which services they attend (58 percent of pastors in this survey reported two or more weekly worship services in their congregation), cause and effect is not at all clear. More elders may experience benefits in the most traditional services because more elders prefer those services.
In fact, 73 percent of elders who describe their most recently attended service as traditional to a great extent also report that their ideal worship service would be traditional. In contrast, among elders who describe their most recent service as traditional to little or no extent a somewhat smaller majority of 55 percent list their ideal service as contemporary.
We'll explore more of what elders--and members--want in an ideal worship service in a future essay.
Email the author: Jack Marcum
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