“Jack Worship”
New style of worship sweeping innovative
churches
The hottest new thing in worship formats sweeping the nation is the new
“Jack worship format.” “Jack worship”
is an innovative worship style that is revolutionizing worship among
evangelical churches and bringing peace where once “worship wars”
prevailed. The idea is a crossover
methodology from the “jack radio” format that swept
The five characteristics of “Jack
worship:”
1. Eliminate the “worship leader.” Jack worship gets rid of annoying DJ-type-chatter by the worship leader—by simply eliminating the worship leader altogether. The music is automatically projected in sequence on the screen and the congregation sings without any leader (or band) up front. The congregation’s focus is on the projected lyrics and not a not-ready-for-prime-time rock band wannabe. Senior pastors and budget committees love the money saved by the new format—it eliminates a full time slot on the pastoral staff. As you might guess, music ministers and “worship arts pastors” take a less cheerful view of the new format. Senior pastors using the Jack worship format who “have not been able to find a good worship leader” have greeted the format with relief. They now say, “the latest format is to have no worship leader but the Holy Spirit.” Jack worship is more than a money-saver though, it is mostly about satisfying the congregation and reducing complaints, but it does in most cases simply do away with a full time worship leader, assigning worship coordination as part of another staff person’s portfolio. Judy Long a youth pastor who just picked up the worship portfolio when her church went to the Jack Worship format put it this way, “No longer does the person planning worship have to be a musician—it is more about planning than leading worship—gee I don’t even own a guitar.”
2. Greater variety in the “playlist.” The average church uses about 60 songs in its
worship—often the worship leader’s personal favorites. Jack worship enlarges this “playlist” to 300 songs with all of them being “sure
shots.” Jack Worship uses only songs
that were “hits” in the past for worship.
While it does occasionally introduce a new song, Jack Worship
“democratizes” music selection by adopting songs “the people” have already
determined are favorites. Pastor Jeff
Sloan put it this way, “With today’s mobility we can no longer count on people
knowing what one church sang in the past—we’ve got to sing what Mr. & Ms. EveryChristian already knows and likes—that’s why we use
the “Jack worship list.” The list of
300 favorite songs is produced by “the center for Jack Worship” and claims to
have “Three hundred songs most every
Christian in
3. 80’s worship music dominance. While this may not be a permanent characteristic of Jack worship, for now at least the format is heavily weighted to the 1980’s worship music just as Jack Radio is heavily weighted to the 80’s. 80’s music is “the new oldies” of course and generation X enjoys the nostalgia approach. But Jack Worship uses songs from all ages in the format, though the 1980’s are the core (for now).
4. Purposeful train wrecks. Jack Worship intentionally abruptly shifts gears by putting dissimilar songs together creating “train wrecks.” The boomer idea of “smooth transitions” is rejected. Thus in a Jack Worship format the congregation may sing “Just as I am” (traditional tune) right before “We bring the sacrifice of Praise” followed by “Purify my Heart.” In Jack Worship if you don’t like the current song the next one is likely to make you happier.
5. Visual and spoken interruptions are eliminated. Jack Worship eliminates the chattering worship leader or lecturing the congregation on “God inhabiting the praises of His people.” It crosses out all worship leader chattering on what they thought about as they drove to church this morning, and kills all verbal gushing about “making love to the Holy Spirit.” It does this by simply eliminating the worship leader altogether and making no microphone available to any worship cheerleader. Jack worship is about singing not speaking. Thus in a curious way it represents the triumph of ministers of music—it makes the music central to worship and not the music minister’s monologues. In Jack Worship congregations sing for 20-30 minutes completely uninterrupted by a voice or visual distractions. They simply sing one worship song after another with their eyes focused on the projected lyrics. Some churches give visual cues (please stand, You may be seated) on the screen but have no other instructions and none verbally. “It melds our people together as one body like nothing we’ve ever done before,” says Brian Fenway who has only used the Jack Worship format for two months in his church plant. “We’ve removed all the “commercial breaks” and gotten out of the way to just let the people worship” he continued. While the Jack Worship style retains local musical accompaniment (often including a “worship band”) it relocates them to the rear or side of the audience “to remove all visual distraction.” Jack Lemons (one of the few professional worship leaders to have adopted the format and kept his job) says, “I’m like a coach—I’m never up front but in the back or on the sidelines—My job is to make sure we’ve got quality accompaniment in the back and first rate projection up front so people can do what they came to do—worship God uninterrupted by any verbal or visual distraction.
Of course, the Jack Worship format has its detractors, including
most professional worship leaders. “It’s
substituting a real live person with a robot” complained Shawn Southby, a music minister who lost his job last month when
his church of 900 switched to the Jack Worship format. “It is
worship-for-the-lowest-common-denominator” chimed in Austin Bond, worship arts
director in
Of course I made all this up. Sure, there is such a thing as “Jack Radio”
but “jack worship” exists only in my imagination. So far. But could it happen? And are some of these things starting to
happen already? So what do you think?
?
By Keith
Drury,
To respond to or discuss this article CLICK HERE
To read more on “Jack Radio…