Choosing Songs For Worship Leading

You’ve been there. So have I.

The worship band sounds like they’ve just stepped out from a major recording session. The vocals are soaring and the harmonies are jaw dropping. The sound and lighting system are state of the art.

And yet . . . something’s missing. Few members of the congregation are singing or are engaged. The performance of the worship team is great but that’s just it; it’s a performance with little participation.

Having the world’s best worship team, phenomenal vocals and astounding technology is wonderful. However, without the right song choices to engage your congregation, you may as well be playing in your garage.

Over the next few posts I’ll discuss choosing effective songs and placing them in different formats of song sets that help to draw your church into engaging worship.

Consider these pointers when you are choosing your songs for worship:

1. You truly are a team between Pastor and Worship leader. Your song choices should reflect congregational concerns as discussed with the pastor in advance and through seeking God in prayer. Usually your pastor is more informed of issues within the church body than you are. They know of losses, joys, themes and needs. Involving your pastors in guiding you in your song choices will give you greater cohesion and impact.
2. Don’t be trapped in a rut of constantly focusing your song choices on a single theme.  There is a wealth of themes to choose from. Here are some common themes to consider:

• Praise
• Abiding
• Acceptance
• Adoration
• Assurance
• Benediction
• Blessing
• Call to Worship
• Celebration
• Comfort
• Courage
• Declaration
• Encouragement
• Faithfulness
• God’s Greatness
• Holiness
• Healing
• Hope
• Invitation
• Prayer
• Salvation
• Strength
• Surrender
• Trinity

3. Balance between ‘Objective’ and ‘Subjective’ lyrics. Objective lyrics are more “about” God and are more corporate in their language. Subjective lyrics are more “personal” in nature. Both are scriptural. However, the tendency in many churches today is to focus on a higher ratio of subjective songs.
4. Add musical variation. There is richness in different forms of music that many worship leaders don’t take the time to explore. It’s been said that the music that was your favorite style when you were eighteen years of age is going to be the default style that you will listen to for the rest of your life. Try to stretch beyond that ‘default style’ to explore the wonders of musical diversity. This may also help to draw in more members of your congregation.
5. Make sure that all the songs are theologically accurate. Although there is a lot of criticism over the theology in contemporary worship songs (and rightly so), there are many hymns that are sung week after week that falter theologically. Your pastor can be a great help in this area in helping you choose songs that reflect your church’s theology. However, always remember that a well-crafted song includes well-crafted poetry and a purely cold and didactic analysis of a song’s theology may not make allowances for imagery and imagination.
6. Singability

• Ensure that there is a teachable melody. Consider the three strikes rule when introducing a new worship song. If the congregation isn’t engaged and musically comfortable with the song after you’ve led it three times, perhaps it’s a good idea just to let it go or to give it a pause before you try to reintroduce it.
• Consider filtering out songs that have too wide a range or difficult intervals. Some well-known worship songs die on the platform because of this weakness. They work well in concert or on the radio but never achieve “lift-off” in your congregation.
• Does the congregation remain on too many high notes for too long? You can potentially pop up to E5 for a quarter note if it’s a quarter note with a fast tempo but you’ll lose much of the congregation if you are expecting them to hit these notes throughout the song for half notes or longer at a slower tempo.
• Ask yourself, “What is the ‘peak’ or ‘highest’ melody note and can it be sung by the average singer?” Generally, the best range for men is B3 to C#4 and for women it’s B4 to C#5. (C4 is middle C) You may easily be able to solve this problem through a key change.
• Reserve the more challenging songs as you move into your worship song set.  Build people’s comfort and confidence first by placing the easier and better-known songs in the beginning of the worship song set. By doing this, you are helping your congregation to feel “welcomed into worship” rather than “pushed into praise.” I’ll write more about this in later posts when I discuss putting together worship song sets.
• Ask yourself, “Will harmonies be pushed too high or too low?” Harmonies are not as important on a fast tempo song or soaring anthem but they make a big difference in a slow, contemplative song. I’ll write about encouraging harmony vocals in your congregation in another post yet to come.
• Be cautious of melodies that ‘noodle’ aimlessly and never rest on a defined musical ‘hook’ that can be picked up easily. OK – you probably didn’t learn the word ‘noodle’ in Music College but I think it describes the problem well. Most of our ears are tuned to repeated patterns in songs (AABB, AABA, etc.) and these are anchor points to help us remember and learn a song. Without this repetition it becomes increasingly difficult for your congregation to learn a new song. A lot of variation can be highly creative but it may make the song far too difficult for the average congregation to grasp ahold of.

Of course, these are general rules of thumb and there are always exceptions. Songs like Agnus Dei written by Michael W Smith had so many strikes against it according to the rules above that it never should have become popular in congregations. Yet, it was played so often on the radio, recorded on so many CDs and resonated in so many hearts that it sat on the CCLI top songs charts for many years. The lesson here is that you should let these “rules” be your guide and apply them to your local church setting.

Over the next few posts I’ll be writing about putting together effective song sets. Stay tuned if you are finding this helpful.

Until next time, “(Be) filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:18b – 20 NIV

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Are you a songwriter and you want your songs to soar? Join us at Break Forth Canada 2013 and learn under the wisdom and experience of one of Christian music's most lauded songwriters. You can take a full day Intensive Learning Workshop as well as classes throughout the conference.  Learn more here.