Congregational Songs – New Songs for Corporate Worship

Building Your Church’s Worship Repertoire

February 28, 2011

There are thousands and thousands of worship songs and hymns out there. You can find them in hundreds of hymnbooks, on hundreds of websites, and on hundreds of worship albums. Out of all the songs that you come across, how do you choose which ones to introduce to your congregation?

I’ve read some good guidelines over the years that have helped me to compile what I look for when I’m listening to a new album or come across a new writer on iTunes. Here they are:

1. Look at the lyrics apart from the music. I think it was an article by Bob Kauflin that pointed this important practice out to me. Make sure you don’t just get mesmerized by a beautiful melody! Though musical content is important, theologically sound and well-written lyrical content is more important.

2. Listen to the “heart” of a song. Does the song make you want to worship God? Does it have a reverent, God-glorifying quality to it? It’s been just recently that I’ve picked up on this. You can tell when a song is written from a humble, gospel-honoring place. Those are the songs I want my congregation singing.

3. Calculate the range. Most average singers have about an octave plus two-or three-notes range. If a song spans more than that, they’re going to have a hard time with it. I don’t worry about how high or low a song was recorded as long as I can transpose it and it doesn’t go below a low A (for the guys) or a high D or the occasional E (for the ladies). Side note: Because of the influence of pop music, some worship songs written today depend on the force of a high male vocal for the energy of the song. You can detect whether this is the case when you lower the song to make it singable by the whole congregation. If you lower it and it no longer feels like it has that “power,” it means that the melody wasn’t that well-written in the first place and was only appealing because it was recorded in a higher key where the singer could belt it out. If this is the case with a song, it’s another good reason to pass.

One more side note here: if you are a male worship leader and you keep songs in the higher keys so that you can belt it out, check your heart. I know the temptation! It feels so good to soar up there. Even spiritual. But if your people, especially the women, are not able to sing unless they can harmonize with you, that’s not very inclusive of your average singer who’s trying to participate. I can’t tell you how many times a woman in our congregation has thanked me for putting songs in keys that they can handle.

4. Imagine an older congregant singing the song. Barbara Haynes, the worship leader at Grace before me, taught me this valuable litmus test: can an older man or woman who is not a trained singer pickup the melody of this song and be able to sing it? If not, it’s probably not the best song to introduce. We want to make sure no one gets left behind just because a song we choose to sing is too jumpy or complicated melodically.

5. Consider the theme. What themes is your church repertoire lacking? Do you need more declarative songs about God’s character? Do you need more congregational response songs? Or do you need to find some songs that address hardship or maybe some that emphasize unity? Look at your current set of songs and see where you need to shore up the subject matter to make what your church sings more fully representational of the whole Christian life.

If you put a song through all the considerations above and it’s still standing, it’s probably a great song! But before you write it into the annals of your church’s history, there’s one more thing to consider:

6. Conduct a congregational test. Last year, I listened over and over to a song that I concluded would be a great one for our church to learn. I charted it out, taught it to the worship team and was excited about introducing it to the congregation. But when we finally sang it, it fell totally flat. I waited a few weeks and tried again. Still flat. Not every song you think will work works. And that’s okay. There’s an intangible “connection” factor where you can tell if a particular song is helping your people worship God or not. It’s an important factor, because your goal is for your church to glorify God with their praises. If they aren’t able to sing a song from their heart (and they’re able to sing others – meaning it’s not a heart issue, it’s a song issue), it’s not very glorifying to God. I think in my case, the production of the song on the recording I was listening to was so compelling that when we did it in the context of a Sunday morning, the energy of the production didn’t translate.

These are the things I consider when sifting through the myriad of worship songs and hymns out there. Are there some other things that you consider when you are looking for new songs to introduce?

Filed under: Leading Worship,Planning a Worship Service