Here are three lenses that I find helpful when choosing songs for corporate worship times.
- THEOLOGICAL
-Songs that are God oriented, not “me” focused. The great error in the modern church (I’m generalising here) is getting stuck in an adolescent type phase where everything is all about me. Our Christianity becomes a roller coaster experience based on feelings, circumstances and emotions when we denigrate our worship of God to what Christian Smith (author of “Soul Searching”) calls “Christian Moralistic therapeutic deism.” Worship leaders, we are not attempting to become the soundtrack to our congregations lives! Count the number of times personal pronouns of “me”, “I” and the like crop up in the songs we are singing. Make sure we are not just adding to our prevailing culture of idolatry by presenting them with an Oprah-esque type God who can fit in their pocket. Sing about God, His nature, His glory and power. Thin theological expression in our songs will only exacerbate a weak ability to endure and walk through the storms and trials of life. If people only got their theology from the songs we sing each week, what type of theology would they own?
– Songs that are New Covenant in nature. We need to keep forefront in our minds that worship did not tear the heavens open, the blood of Christ did! Worship does not take us into His presence. The blood does! It is again idolatry of the grandest nature when we elevate our worship to a status that is not biblical. So sing about what Jesus has done! Revel in His goodness. Songs that remind people that we have direct access to The Father. Christ is our mediator, not our corporate worship times! Songs that allow us to meditate and rejoice in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection should be a non-negotiable presence in our weekend set-lists.
2. CONGREGATIONAL
-Songs that serve the people. It is vital that we remind ourselves that leading worship means LEADING people. Think through the different type of people who are coming to our meetings each week. Some have been in church for years, but many are new, and potentially don’t know Christ. Remove as many barriers between them and their encountering Jesus.
-The best way to know where people are at is to be truly involved in the community of the church. Be submitted to the leadership. Have conversations with them often around the culture of worship in your local church. Ask for feedback.
-Don’t introduce too many new songs too quickly. Most people in our congregations only sing the songs we’re singing once a week, whilst we as worship leaders play them at practice, at home, in our cars, all on top of our Sunday meetings. So we definitely will get bored of them quicker. But again we must remind ourselves that this is not about us! Our aim at a base level is to get the people singing, not primarily to get their feet tapping.
-Songs that are easy to sing. On a very practical note, consider the keys you are singing in. Too low and the song hardly ever gets off the ground, too high and you alienate half the congregation. Again, remember the leading is about the people who are following you!
- DIRECTIONAL
-Songs that serve the set. It’s not about just choosing four great songs as if the worship band is a form of christian juke-box (or for the millenials, a personalised Spotify playlist). We must choose songs that take people on a journey each week, from REVELATION TO RESPONSE. There are a wave of wonderful faith-stirring songs of God’s people calling on God to do great things, and what we in faith will do for Him, but make sure we are singing about what God has DONE and WHO HE IS first so that our response and appeal of God is based on what we have seen of Him and not just from our emotional need. When thinking of the worship-set holistically each week, I’ve found that attempting to keep the songs in the same key as much as possible helps serve the momentum of our moments.
-Songs that serve the service. Our church services don’t begin and end with the strum of a guitar. We have to learn to think through the context of our services as a whole and not just our 30 minutes or so of singing. Are the songs we’re singing complementing the momentum and journey of the entire service each week? Too often worship teams can forget that the people they lead each week are coming into the Sunday gathering not on the wave of faith and prayer time that they have. So our goal is not to take people from 0 to 100 by our first chorus, but rather to help them take steps of faith on the journey in the context of the entire Sunday meeting.
-Songs that serve the season. Again we must make it a priority to work in team with our local church leaders in this regard. Learn to carry a heart for the church. David in the Psalms was a man very in tune with the seasons of God and the seasons of his own soul and those of the people he lead. We are not “ra-ra” cheerleaders. Our worship times are not therapeutic pick me up times. We lead from where the people are at, and LEAD them to where God wants them to be. Sing songs that carry the life of God. It may have the funkiest bass line, or the most incredible groove, but if it is not carrying the spark of the life of God then jettison it fast. Be wary of the trap that says, “it worked in the past so it must work again and again”.