Written by 
Worshiping with instruments
As for music, the elders said it was clear they should use a blended model of a cappella and instrumental music in the new church’s worship.
Northside leaders hope the addition of instruments will help them better reach younger residents in a region where a cappella Churches of Christ are little known and where churches in general struggle with evangelism.
Washington has 116 historically a cappella Churches of Christ with about 8,500 members, out of a total population of 7.7 million, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian. The state is one of only six in the nation with more than 60 percent of adults who say they never or rarely attend religious services, Axios reported, citing an analysis of Household Pulse Survey data.
To be clear, Northside leaders don’t believe they’re compromising on truth — rather, they say some of the doctrines they once believed were vital were really traditions. And they don’t feel they have the luxury of clinging to traditions that hinder their ability to evangelize.
Unity in Churches of Christ despite musical differences is not an entirely unprecedented idea, according to John Young, an expert on the 19th century Restoration Movement from which modern Churches of Christ emerged.
T.B. Larimore — a prominent evangelist born in 1843 who established multiple Churches of Christ in the South and what would eventually become the Mars Hill Bible School in Florence, Ala. — refused to disfellowship instrumental churches.
Larimore supported a cappella worship, but for him, “it was secondary in importance to, as he called it, ‘Christ and him crucified,’” Young told the Chronicle, referencing a 2 Corinthians verse often quoted by the preacher.
In fact, uniting all Christians into one fellowship was a key goal of Restorationists.
But for more than a century, Churches of Christ — including Northside for most of its history — have predominantly held that a cappella worship is required by the New Testament.
Tom Condos, minister for the Richland Church of Christ in southeastern Washington, said he, too, feels the challenge of the large number of unchurched people in the region.
“The Pacific Northwest is a mission field,” he told the Chronicle. “It’s far different. … Christianity as a whole, up here, is just a different way of looking at what it means to even be connected to Christ, let alone our specific fellowship.”
But that doesn’t mean Christians should leave behind the example of worship presented by the early church, said Condos, whose congregation hosts the annual Leadership Training for Christ Northwest. To Condos, it’s a fallacy to think instruments are needed to evangelize young Washingtonians.
“I think what attracts people is not the worship style but rather the passion of those who are engaging in the worship,” Condos said. “And so if that (passion) has to be, you know, manufactured some other way, then that’s the way someone could do it. But for us, I think it’s about how diligent you are in … making it an effort in your congregation to uphold that value of worship.”