One of the most memorable congregational worship services I’ve ever attended was a long time ago, mid 90’s, at Greenbelt Arts Festival in the UK. Morning chapel was held in a big top with none other than the redoubtable Tony Campolo as the preacher. That wasn’t the only thing that made it memorable. What stood out the most was the music and lyrics to the worship songs. The music genres were sourced from around the world, not the standard MOR Soft Rock that the Evangelical church had settled on by then. I heard reggae, African, South American and jazz if my memory serves me correct. I had never heard contemporary worship music in any other genre than middle of the road (MOR) Soft Rock.

The lyrics were a pleasant surprise as well. There were songs about justice and songs of lament, not something you find within the lyrics of typical contemporary worship. You certainly find those themes in Scripture, but rarely in modern worship lyrics. I’ve never heard anything like it since. It’s been a long time in between drinks, and I’m kind of thirsty.

No Place To Hide

One of my most disappointing worship experiences happened in a small church that met at an abandoned stadium in Mzilikazi, Bulawayo. Times were fraught in Zimbabwe, as it was in between two general elections when Morgan Tsvangirai was dudded out of an election win by sitting President Mugabe. The church met at Barbourfields Stadium, the pitch of which had become overgrown with elephant grass. Amidst the decay and political tension, was an oasis of faith. I was greatly looking forward to worshipping with the Ndebele people. Having grown up around Xhosa people I knew the power of African worship singing. Musical instruments were optional.

After the first 3 songs, much to my disappointment we switched into English and the ubiquitous sounds of Hillsong filled the room. Here I was in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, a considerable distance away from Australia, but even there Hillsong music was edging out home grown indigenous worship music genres. It felt like there was nowhere in the world I could escape.

Despite soft rock being alien to the local Zimbabwean believers, it represented an attractive western trend that the young worshippers were keen to adopt. Whilst talking about genres, grab a clipboard and bear with me for an interesting experiment…

“Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through music.”

Martin Luther

Music Genre Experiment

Here’s a revealing experiment you can conduct with worship leaders and pastors in your church to determine the variety of music genres that they relate to.

1. Find 5 worship leaders or pastoral staff, and then ten church members. Ask them to reveal what their top 5 songs for 2024 were, in either their Spotify Wrapped, or Apple Music, or whatever other streaming music platform they consume music on.

2. You should have a list of 50 songs. Make note of what genre each song is and compile a list of genres.

3. Using your list work out the percentage of each genre in terms of its representation in the group of 10 people.

Your list should have some predictable genres such as pop rock, rock and possibly even country. It will no doubt have a few electronic or techno genres, and possibly some rap, plus an interesting and diverse array of genres.

Armed with the list generated from your own people, now compare it to your top 50 songs on your current worship service rotation. Your rotation will feature soft rock. Within that there will be a variation. A current fan favourite is ‘This Is Amazing Grace’ (Phil Wickham), an upbeat singable chorus that is sung with gusto. That contrasts with ‘Oceans’ (Hillsong), a slower flexible tempo led by a vocalist.  Passion’s energetic ‘Glorious Day’ once again features a driving beat and a punchier, anthemic singing style. But it’s all a variation on a theme.

What are Australians listening to?

There are 1383 music genres on Australian Spotify (as opposed to 1 in the contemporary church). SoundCloud research shows that electronic music makes up a third of all its Australian streams, compared with a 22% average across the rest of the globe. Australian fans engage with electronic more frequently than any other genre.

A survey has found that the most popular music genres in Australia are: 20% of people surveyed chose pop music (23% of women and 16% of men) as their favourite genre. Rock/indie rock is up next, with 13% of listeners opting for guitar-based music, followed by 11% citing country music (16% of men, 11% of women, 14% of regional and 9% of metro), 10% enjoying Top 40/current hits, and 7% loving hip-hop/rap music (16% of 16-24-year-olds).

The Spotify Wrapped for 2024 revealed that Australia’s most-streamed local artists this year as follows: First position went to the Wiggles (perhaps evidence to bring back Sunday School songs into the main worship service?). Second was 21-year-old Australian rapper The Kid LAROI, third was Vance Joy, followed by CYRIL and Dom Dolla. Australia’s most streamed global artists on Spotify were Taylor Swift, Drake, Zach Bryan, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd. To cut a long story short – we have a wide and diverse taste in music.

Monoculture within a Multi-culture

Despite the significant variation in musical genres enjoyed by Australians, plus the myriads of cultural genres imported to our church community through new migrants from around the world, soft rock is the order of the day and has been for over 30 years. Many other aspects of our daily life have become globalised culturally, but our worship is untouched. Many ethnic churches (within the Baptist world) meet in their own cultural groupings, and the ‘normal’ church continues to operate within a cultural monosphere musically. There clearly are many exceptions, and I’m making generalisations here, not just for the sake of the argument but from my own and others experience.

It’s the chosen music genre vehicle for worship singing. The decision has been made, we don’t know who and we don’t know when. Well, I guess we can kind of narrow it down, so let’s have a stab at the reasons behind soft rock being the chosen genre:

1. Influence of the Jesus Movement (1960s-1970s)

The shift towards contemporary worship music began with the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s, when young Christians began incorporating folk and rock influences into worship. Bands like Love Song and artists like Keith Green (the first ever CCM I bought and the first live CCM concert I attended) album and Larry Norman pioneered this sound, blending acoustic guitar-driven folk rock with spiritual themes.

The simple, singable, and emotionally evocative style of middle of the road (MOR) rock has become the chosen natural fit for mass gatherings, and its influence has never faded or been challenged.

2. The Rise of Hillsong and Worship Industry Standardization

The Hillsong model (which exploded in the 1990s) cemented soft rock as the dominant church genre. Worship bands like Hillsong United, Elevation Worship, Bethel Music, and Chris Tomlin have created a template for what “modern worship” sounds like—mid-tempo, atmospheric, reverb-heavy, and emotionally stirring. These groups monopolized the CCLI top worship charts, making their sound the default setting for churches worldwide. Even churches in the dusty back streets of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

3. Accessibility and Emotional Engagement

Singability:  Soft rock is easy to sing corporately (although there are some notable exceptions). It sits within most people’s vocal range and doesn’t require technical ability. If it’s out of your vocal range the volume of the music will drown out your horrendous singing. I rely heavily on this.

Emotional manipulation:  The slow builds, crescendo moments, and repetitive, chant-like choruses make soft rock feel deeply spiritual. You can ‘set the mood’ well if you are an experienced worship leader. The longer the worship set, the more repetitions, the more opportunity to attempt to move people towards an ecstatic experience.

Production-ready: Churches can easily replicate the Hillsong sound with a small band—just a keyboard, electric guitar, bass, drums, and a worship leader. If you are hard up for musical talent, you can simply play the videos. (I wish more churches did this during Covid, there were many crimes committed against music with churches livestreaming some pretty dreadful stuff. Only the rich and large churches were able to provide star talent and tv broadcast standards.)

4. Western Individualism and Worship as Experience

Contemporary worship music often prioritizes personal emotional experience over communal expression. The soft rock ballad format, with its swells and breakdowns, aligns with a concert-like worship atmosphere. This mirrors mainstream pop music, potentially creating an emotional high rather than theological depth.

5. Church Growth Strategy and Market-Driven Worship

The seeker-sensitive church movement (Willow Creek, Saddleback) encouraged “user-friendly” worship—music that wouldn’t alienate visitors.

MOR soft rock is inoffensive—it’s not too loud, not too weird, and feels familiar to people who listen to Coldplay, U2, or Imagine Dragons. Many churches now treat worship music as a branding strategy, with each church developing a “sound” to appeal to a specific demographic.

6. Market Dominance of Megachurches

Christianity Today reports research that has found that the market on worship music is dominated by 4 megachurches. Bethel and three other megachurches have cornered the market on worship music. This means that the worship hits dominating the worship charts come from an incredibly small perspective. The research looked at 38 songs that made the Top 25 lists for CCLI and PraiseCharts—which track what songs are played in churches—and found that almost all had originated from one of four megachurches. The study’s authors wrote that “If you have ever felt like most worship music sounds the same it may be because the worship music you are most likely to hear in many churches is written by just a handful of songwriters from a handful of churches.”

7. Cut & Paste Culture

Contemporary Evangelical culture to a large degree is cut and paste. We don’t develop our own music; we buy it from the multi-million-dollar worship music industry. We buy our sermon series, small group studies, video graphics, Powerpoint graphics, video animations. It makes life easier, but when the source ground of the material is concentrated in a small selection of producers it makes our culture seem like McDonalds – different town, different suburb, different country but the same menu. We operate on the assumption that we all listen to and like the chosen genre.

8.  Lack of Analysis

We aren’t conditioned to ask hard questions. Those that do are moved out to the margins very quickly. Of all the sins you can commit in the church being perceived as ‘impolite’ or ‘rude’ are up there. People who ask hard questions are not welcome. We simply do not have a culture of introspection. We go with the flow and with what is popular. Bums on seats is our occums razor. Why question things if it brings the people in?

Why Doesn’t the Church Embrace a Wider Range of Musical Genres?

Despite Christianity’s global diversity, and the sheer musical and cultural diversity within congregations, Western churches often resist musical variety. Here’s why:

1. Worship as Performance Culture

The stagification of Christianity means that many modern worship services mimic concerts, making soft rock instrumentation the default.

Other genres don’t fit the live concert-like atmosphere of modern megachurches.

Churches with lighting rigs, smoke machines, and arena-style stages create a performance dynamic, reinforcing soft rock as the easiest style to control the perfect vehicle for creating the right emotional mood. Now that worship is seen almost exclusively as an activity that involves ecstatic experiences achieved through singing, soft rock is the genre de jour to achieve this.

2. Fear of Controversy or the Unknown

Some genres carry too much cultural baggage and some are simply not recognised by our leadership cohort – despite its popularity with church members who listen to an entirely different spectrum of musical genres to the only one represented in church :

Hip-hop: Churches may see it as too rebellious or secular, but they have no idea just how many of their congregation listen to rep and hip hop.

Heavy metal: Too aggressive; associated with dark themes. Church people are well groomed, tattoo free and they cut their hair. Plus, the old folk (that’s my age and above) will have a fit.

Electronic/Dance music: Often linked with club culture and drug use. It’s also difficult to produce as we have no history producing that in house. Search Spotify for Christian electronic music and you may be surprised.

Country & Western: No way, that’s too American!

African: Our parents all got too burned singing kumbaya so we ain’t going there anymore..

Gospel: We’re way to white, suburban and sedate for that!

Dub Step: What’s that?!

Drum & bass: Yes, we have those instruments….[sigh]

Latin American: Does that come in English?

3. The Theology of Worship is Shallow

Many evangelical churches prioritize “how worship makes you feel” over biblical richness. Soft rock’s slow builds and emotional peaks create a false sense of spirituality, where goosebumps = God’s presence. Churches neglect theologically rich traditions like (to name a few):

• The call-and-response nature of Gospel music.
• The storytelling of folk and country.
• The lament and raw honesty found in blues.
• The passion and energy of hard rock.
• The positivity and beat of dance/electronic.
• The congregational involvement of acapella ethnic worship.

4. A White, Middle-Class Worship Monopoly

Western worship music is heavily shaped by predominantly white megachurches (Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation). These churches have market dominance, making black gospel, Latin rhythms, indigenous sounds, and folk traditions underrepresented.

The “worship industry” functions like the pop music industry—if a song doesn’t fit the existing style, it won’t get traction.

What Can Churches Do to Expand Musical Worship?

Here’s how churches can break out of the MOR soft rock box and restore diversity to worship:

1. Introduce Multiple Worship Styles in Rotation

Churches should intentionally mix genres, such as  (to mention a few):

• Gospel & Soul – More communal, deeply expressive.
• Folk & Bluegrass – Rooted in storytelling, biblical imagery.
• Jazz & Blues – Honest lament and celebration.
• Electronic & Synth Worship – Expands worship’s sonic landscape.
• Hip-Hop & Spoken Word – Modern psalmody and prophetic critique.

2. Incorporate Non-Western Worship Traditions

Churches should learn from global Christianity:

• African choral worship (call and response, rhythmic intensity).
• Latin American rhythms (salsa, cumbia, reggaeton-infused worship).
• Middle Eastern & Jewish musical traditions (microtonal scales, percussive chants).
• Celtic hymns (deep theology, haunting melodies).

“Microtonal scales use intervals that are smaller than the standard semitone, or half step, in a tuning system. The term “microtonal” can also refer to any music that uses intervals outside of the standard Western tuning.”

3. Reclaim the Richness of Hymns

The church abandoned classic hymns in favour of 4-chord soft rock, but hymns contain deep theological truths. It doesn’t have to be either or, it can be both. Hymns can also be ‘remixed’, retaining their theological majesty.

4. Stop Worship Industry Homogenization

Churches must stop blindly following the CCLI top charts and seek fresh, local expressions of worship. Artists from within need to be given opportunity to write songs for local congregations.

Imagine the Musically Unchained Church

MOR soft rock dominates church music because it is accessible, emotionally engaging, and market-friendly—but it limits worship’s richness. The global church is musically diverse, yet Western churches rarely reflect this reality. By broadening worship styles, we recover a fuller, richer, and more biblical expression of praise.

For a minute imagine what church would be beyond the predictable worship set and long sermon, enriched by a range of styles that reflect the music that the members of each congregation listen to and the ethnic cultures that are represented within them.

Some hard rock would scare away the oldies on a Sunday morning but your evening service can turn up the volume:

Imagine a church that incorporates music and worship traditions from across time from the Early Church to now, and across the world to reflect how global we have become.

Adding a bit of reggae would light up your average Baptist congregation for sure:

Imagine a church enriched by writers from across the globe instead of 4 sources. Here is an example of a Canadian church enriched by African worship from South Africa:

Imagine a church where musicians are constantly learning new styles from both historic and contemporary sources, from across the world.

Imagine the church exploring dance/electronic music via remixes:

It’s time to unchain our musicians and explore uncharted territory. We don’t have to settle for soft rock alone.

“God directs his people not simply to worship but to sing his praises ‘before the nations.’ We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.”

Timothy J. Keller