What will we sing as a church? Which songs? What kinds of songs? Obviously, we’re going to sing to God and about God, but when you zoom in to the actual songs, what are we looking for?
With literally hundreds of thousands of songs to choose from, we have to be selective about what we sing. We learn from the Psalms that there is variety to the songs we sing together in worship, and Colossians 3:16 commands us to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Songs are easier to remember than sermons, and are often packed densely with rich theological truths. This is why they are so important and powerful.
If you’ve attended Grace for even just a few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that we sing old hymns, new hymns, and “contemporary Christian” songs. You may have noticed that we sing songs of praise, songs of thanksgiving, songs of confession, songs that rehearse the gospel, songs that express the character of God…you get the idea. What is our aim?
First and foremost, in our worship of God, we aim to sing true things. A church’s repertoire expresses its theology. When we offer praise to the Lord or sing about who he is and what he’s done, we must make sure what we sing is true. Songs are easier to remember than sermons and are often packed densely with rich theological truths. This is why they are so important and powerful. God doesn’t want us to sing falsehoods, and we don’t want to ingrain falsehoods through memorable melodies or rhyme schemes.
Our second aim is that our songs be God-centered, not human-centered. Many new songs skew the other direction with this and focus on “what God will do for me.” Don’t get me wrong; it’s good to sing about what God has done and is doing! But if we center our worship around what God is doing or will do for us, our worship is focused on us—we worship God for what we will get. While we want to express gratitude and proclaim to others how God’s actions affect our lives, we also want to worship God for who he is and what he has already done.
One worship leader shared that their worship team surveyed the types of songs they sang as a church and then noted congregational engagement in connection with those types. They found that when the church was singing with the highest level of engagement, those were Sundays when the songs focused most on God, his glory, and his character. But on Sundays when the singing was lackluster, the songs leaned more toward “what God will do for me.” It’s awe-inspiring to sing of the glory of a transcendent and loving God. Singing about ourselves? Not so much. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t sing about our relationship with God and what he will do in our lives. The Psalms often use the first-person singular when addressing God—I, me, my. We should sing about our relationship with God, about his work in us, about our response to him. But when we focus too much on ourselves, our worship is no longer doing what it’s supposed to do. And our hearts can tell.
A third aim is to sing songs that are “congregational.” What I mean by that is the melodies are memorable, engaging, and enjoyable to sing. I don’t say “singable” because anything is “singable” if we like it. Take “The Star-Spangled Banner.” That song is HARD. But because we know it, we can sing it. That said, many songs on the radio are simply not designed to be sung by congregations. The melody is too involved, too generic, too reliant on vocal riffs, or is a “performance.” There is nothing wrong with a song like this if the lyrics are true and encouraging. There are a lot of great Christian songs that I love but are too difficult to sing as a large group. That’s not what those songs are designed for.
We also aim to sing both old and new songs with a sense of purpose and vision. We sing old songs for many reasons. They tend to be richer in theology than newer songs (not always, though!). Also, many people who grew up in the church grew up singing traditional songs, and there is a deep familiarity with them. That is a powerful thing. I’ve noticed that when we sing a familiar hymn on Sunday, the volume of singing goes up!
Another reason is that these songs connect us with saints across church history. We sing some of the same hymns that our brothers and sisters did hundreds of years ago. This reminds us that the church is bigger than our culture, our time in history, and our stylistic preferences. It reminds us that across the last two millennia, Christians have experienced the same struggles and the same joys that we have.
We sing new songs with intentionality as well. All songs were new at one point, and when they were written, they were a product of their own time and culture. While the church transcends culture, church still happens in the context of culture. Though some new songs are good, many writers of Christian songs tend to write quickly and with an eye toward radio play. This comes with a host of problems, which I won’t get into. As we vet new songs, we have to make sure they are worth singing. It’s not enough for them to be “current.” One thing good hymns have taught us is that if a song is going to have any staying power, it needs to have some element of timelessness. New songs are being written today that have a timeless quality, have rich theology, address things that songs of the past haven’t, and all the while feel like they are a product of our time and culture. That’s hard to do!
Finally, we want to sing a variety of songs knowing that there is a lot of variety in our congregation—people are in different places in their walk with the Lord, are going through different things, and have different backgrounds. From another perspective, not everyone loves hymns, and not everyone loves contemporary Christian songs. This is an opportunity for us to remember that what we do as the gathered church isn’t about our preferences. If you don’t like hymns, remember that when we sing them, many are deeply encouraged by them. The same is true if you don’t like contemporary Christian music. This is an opportunity to serve one another. A writer I greatly respect had this to say regarding this issue: “A mature Christian is easily edified.” His point was that if we rely on the music we like in order to worship, we’re saying the Holy Spirit can only work through the music we prefer. But what matters most is the truth of what we sing. May we never allow our preferences to dictate our ability to worship with our brothers and sisters. This is an important way for us to practice unity. Let us love one another by singing together the powerful truths of the gospel, whether that be an old hymn from centuries past or a song that newly captures the beauty of our God.
