Modern Worship?!

As I'm writing this I am listening to my latest CD purchase Redemption Songs by Jars of Clay. The entire album, er, CD contains traditional hymns like I'll Fly Away, Nothing But the Blood, It is Well With My Soul, and On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand to name a few. But the thing that makes this CD different is that Jars of Clay has put each hymn text to a new tune. Personally I love this kind of music, especially when the new tune works itself around the more well known "classic" tune, it is inspiring and connects me to those Christians who have experienced this music before me. So this brings up the question of how much of the experience of the Church is changeable and how much is unchangeable?

Surely it can be seen that the message that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead is unchangeable, but that only begs the question of what can be reinvented in the Church. Is the worship service unchangeable? Does this extend to type of music, style of worship, length of the service? Or is it possible that each congregation must work to find the way they can best express the unchanging truth of God to the changing community that they find themselves in. Is the way we express the Gospel locked into a mode that can not change?

The great thing about this CD is that it works. It makes the traditional modern and accessible to some who may never pickup a CD of the greatest hymns. While the tune the artists use to share the words of the song has been changed to appeal more to today's CD purchaser, the song itself is unchanged, and isn't that were the actual message is anyway?