Congregational Songs – New Songs for Corporate Worship

Planning a Corporate Worship Service – Song Flow

February 9, 2011

Each time I write one of these posts, three more ideas for posts come to mind that I want to tackle! I’ve been thinking about writing on a specific topic for the past week, and then I reread the last post where I said what I would write about next – I have been formulating the wrong post in my head.

So, let me do what I said I would and write very briefly (maybe) on how to choose songs that make sense content-wise from one song to the next. This is something that’s very practical. There are many times when I pick two declarative songs to sing at the beginning of a service, and I ask myself, “Which one should we sing first?” I believe the specific content of the song is the best way to make this choice. Unless the music makes much more sense flowing from one song to the next, take a look at the lyrics to see which you would more naturally say before the other.

For instance, this past week, we were focusing on God’s great love and forgiveness shown through Christ to the woman who washed his feet with her hair at Simon’s house (Luke 7:36-50). I chose the hymn “The Love of God” and Matt Redman’s tune “You Alone Can Rescue” as the two songs we could sing before we moved into communion. “The Love of God” is one big pontification about the height, width and depth of God’s love that includes this beautifully-written final verse:

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Though the hymn does have a line that speaks of God’s love being manifested through sending his Son, it does so in a more broad way – “redeeming grace to Adam’s race.” So then I look at “You Alone Can Rescue,” and I find a much more personal testimony of God’s love through Christ who “came down to find us.” Though it is still a corporate song using “we” and “us” pronouns (I need to do a post on pronouns in worship sometime!), it speaks of God’s love in a more intimate way.

So, I decided to start with “The Love of God” straight into “You Alone Can Rescue.” Then the lines started jumping out at me.

From “The Love of God”: “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.”

From “You Alone Can Rescue”: “Our shame was deeper than the sea, Your grace is deeper still.”

What a beautiful progression! God’s love goes beyond the lowest hell (more general), and his grace goes deeper than our sin (personal). I didn’t set out for that to happen, but as soon as I saw the parallel, it made me happy.

So my point is this: pay attention to how one song’s lyrics transition into the next. They’re not always going to be as obviously paired as this, but if no care is taken to have some sort of coinciding message or progressing message, the worshipper might get a little contextual whiplash (as my friend Wayne Causey said to me last week).

Next post: What elements are essential in a corporate worship service?

Filed under: Leading Worship,Planning a Worship Service