The second thing a successful worship ministry does is prepare the hearts of the congregation to receive God's word from the appointed speaker. To bring the congregation to the throne and prepare them for God's word. A lot of people come to church with all sorts of things on their minds. With heavy hearts. Beaten down through the week etc. A successful worship ministry reaches in and grabs their heart with relevant music, performed well. (yeah I said performed) Like it or not when musicians play music they are performing. There is no way around that. They can perform in church for God's purpose, or they can perform in a bar for other purposes. Either way, playing music in public is a performance. A successful music ministry reaches hearts. Because music done well creates emotion. If your music ministry isn't creating emotion and preparing hearts to hear the word of God, then it is failing.
So it is two fold in today's churches. Lead worship, and prepare hearts. If we want music to be solely about worship..... I mean I do that everyday at home with a guitar in my quiet time.
This isn't anything new. Your pianist and organist knew their purpose was to "set up" the congregation for the preacher. Its been that way all of our lives. Today because music is so diverse.... a piano and organ doesn't get it done for most people under the age of about 40. That's just the way it is.
The music is even selected to dovetail into the message the preacher has prepared.
I have found that in the churches where I have worshiped and served by music, the congregation, including ALL ages enjoy variety in the music, and we have the little ones singing every song along with the old folks, like myself, singing every song. No one complains, at least not so I hear it, that songs they don’t like the style of are mixed in with the songs of which they approve.