Tag Archives: worship music

Familiarity: The Key to Selecting Worship Songs

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A few years ago, I had a conversation with a church member who wanted to know how and why I chose the songs for worship here at our church. To get a better idea of how to respond, I asked more specific questions such as: what are some of your favorite songs for congregational singing and why? Do you like newer songs and if so, why? What I usually get in response may be boiled down to one word: FAMILIARITY! In the course of the conversation, I learned that this man wants to be able to participate, but doesn’t always know every song we sing. Isn’t this true of all of us? I don’t think people are necessarily opposed to learning new songs, but what they really crave are songs that are familiar. People will tell you they know what they like, but the truth is, they like what they know.  I think this adage should guide the worship planner/leader in balancing choices made when selecting songs for the intergenerational church along with other salient criteria such a doctrinal truth and other musical and textual concerns.

Here are a few points to consider regarding choices in worship planning for congregational song for familiarity:

  1. Familiar songs may be new or old. Familiar songs do NOT necessarily mean time-tested hymns. Familiar songs are songs that are sung enough that most in your congregation knows them well enough to participate. Further, familiar songs for one congregation may not necessarily be familiar in another context. Some songs have special meaning to a congregation that might not be on the radar of another congregation. Songs used for special occasions or at special times in the life of the church can have powerful meaning not found in any other congregation. Just remember your context and be sure to include worship music that has special meaning to the congregation often.
  2. New songs should stand the test of time. There have been many new songs that I’ve taught our congregation over the course of many years as worship leader here at the church. In my conversation with the man who asked me about my choices for worship music, I explained that the newer songs chosen for worship here at the church have been very intentional and told him to stick around, he’d know it well enough in time.
    I try very hard to pick songs with memorable text, melodies, and harmonic interest. I told him while there are some very popular songs in our evangelical world, many of them will not become part of what I call “time-tested hymnody.” I always aim to use songs that I believe will be sung by our children and grandchildren for years to come. One more note about this: I try to stay current in what new worship music is out there. Most of the time I wait some time to see if a song is going to “fall off the radar.” By the time we sing the song, it’s usually something that will last.
  3. Familiarity may be taught.  When I introduce new songs, I try make sure we sing it often enough for it to catch on. Many others have offered wonderful ideas for introducing new songs. Have someone sing the song as a solo, have one of your choirs or praise teams sing the song, have the children sing it first, etc. Once the song has been heard, try to sing it with the congregation. The tune should be easy enough to catch on by the end of the song. Continue to use the song judiciously in worship so it becomes familiar enough. If your pastor does sermon-series, or if you have a revival or something where a new song can accentuate that series, try to introduce something then. I’ve found revivals are a wonderful time to introduce  new songs because if it’s used in all those services, the people will have many daily interactions with the songs. Some of our favorite songs here at Ivy Creek were “learned” during this intensive times of worship.
  4. Familiarity may be gauged by watching the congregation. One of the things I do every week is look at our people as I’m leading. Are the people singing? While I expect time-tested hymnody to have greater participation, I’m watching to see what’s going on with different generations.Here’s what I’ve noticed:*Unless your people are die-hard listeners of Christian radio, they are not likely to know the newest songs. PERIOD. There is no age stratification here. This is why I’m not convinced that specific generations like specific types of music.
    *The songs in which more people participate are the ones that have been around longer.

POINT: BE CAREFUL TO BALANCE VERY FAMILIAR SONGS WITH SONGS THAT ARE EMERGING IN FAMILIARITY! I recommend there be familiar song(s) to most people in your congregation every week. I hope no one in our congregation leaves without being about to participate if they wish.

I don’t think worship leaders, especially in intergenerational contexts, should strive to arbitrarily insert some hymns and new worship songs into worship services and call it a day. While there is much to be considered in terms of the sermon, the theme (if you have one for the day), the key is to consider YOUR church context when selecting songs each week. Because there are many songs from which to choose for worship, be choosy worship leader!

Merging Worship Styles

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Over the last several months, I’ve heard of several churches that have had multiples styles of worship prior to Covid making changes to one, more balanced, intergenerational style. Most of the worship pastors I’ve heard from are excited that their churches are embracing a more inclusive worship experience. For those of you in a similar boat, here are some great guidelines (not exhaustive, of course) for you to use when considering a shift from multiple styles back to one, more balanced, style. To be clear, this is not a call against churches with multiple styles, but rather some practical ways those churches seeking to bring greater unity to their churches by merging into one style may do so.

  1. Prayer! Pray for unity in specific ways (1 Cor. 1:10; Phil 2:1-8; Col 3:14; 2 Cor 13:11; Rom 15:6; et al). Remember: the goal is not to make everyone in the church unhappy by telling them their preferred style of music (and let’s be honest, music and time frame are what people care about) will no longer be the same. Pray for soft and receptive hearts, for unity, and for God’s glory.
  2. Must be approved by the Senior/Lead Pastor. While many of the worship pastors didn’t say this directly to me, I got a very strong sense that the move to multiple styles of worship was championed by senior leadership who felt the need to reach more people/please more people in their church. While this is not a hard and fast rule, many worship pastors would not advocate for having to plan and lead (or even oversee other leaders) for multiple worship styles. Therefore, you can bet that the senior/lead pastor must be on board with this change. If you can, remind your pastor of the biblical precedents of intergenerational worship and how unity is the goal.
  3. Must have buy in from key leaders. I don’t think I can stress this enough. Have meetings, have conversations, have prayer with all those major leaders/players in the process of coming together. Share your heart and philosophical reasonings for why intergenerational worship is biblically sound. Be prepared to answer tough questions and anxious people. Think through every aspect of how the changes will affect as many groups inside the church so you’re prepared when confronted with questions.
  4. Consider your church context. Every church is unique. When hearing from each church planning to merge together, each and every one had a specific set of limitations and concerns. Carefully consider how this move might affect your Bible Study/Life Groups/Sunday School, your choir and orchestra, your band, AVL teams, etc. Ask yourself: what challenges present themselves that we need to solve before and during our merging process. The most common questions will likely be, “what will the new service look like? and who will be involved?”
  5. Work hard to bring together a “new” common musical language. One of the biggest tasks you’ll have to navigate is merging the hymnody of your multiple styles of worship. Perhaps there are songs that overlap from each of the separate services—begin with those. Look for ways to integrate familiar songs for “all” groups represented. You may have to unify the charts used and the instrumentation depending on your new intergenerational style, but choose wisely and carefully…especially if drums were not present in one of the services.
  6. Figure out a way to utilize all the musicians from all services. This is also a challenge because when combining forces, you’re going to realize there might be some redundancy in your players. Find creative ways to use them all in an equitable rotation. Just remember…we’re in this together; no one is totally excluded. There are some challenges to face depending on your context. I heard from one colleague that has merged styles and their choices related to merging styles has the choir not singing every week for now. He said it’s hurt rehearsal attendance because there’s not the weekly service to sing in. However, this same choir is now having to sing for multiple services on the weeks they are scheduled! The scenarios are endless. Just realize there will be compromises ahead! Handle them with grace.
  7. Make changes slowly. Unless you have an incredible reason to make a dramatic shift quickly, make slow changes—working in one new song that might be new to everyone–or one new instrument that might change the timbre of the sound. Perhaps the dress of the worship leadership themselves might need to be done slowly. If one service was formal and the other very informal, find a compromise on the dress to help foster unification.

As a church that is pretty textbook intergenerational and our services are identical with one prevailing style, which has both traditional and contemporary elements, I can say our move in 2014 to two completely mirrored services had its own challenges. While we didn’t have a musical style issue to overcome, we did have several practical issues to deal with. Here was our scenario:

*We had an 8:30 and 11:00 service with SS in between (choir and orchestra only at 11-PT and band at 8:30- same music, but without choir feature; we moved to SS at 8:20, 9:45, and 11 and our worship times went to 9:45 and 11.
*Our shift to back to back services allowed us to use the choir and orchestra for both services (although choir was only in loft for first 10-15 minutes of service–major drawback). The plus was each service got the identical worship experience. To date I have less than a 15-20% change in choir size between the services, because the choir sings and then can go to SS, stay for whole service, or leave. The change did require many more volunteers than we had before, but the dividends have been worth it. I built up the excitement of being involved in the worship services while not having to miss SS.
*Biggest drawback has been parking. Between 10:30 and 11 is the time frame we have the most people on campus at any given time. The 11 worship attenders are starting to arrive, 9:45 attenders are still here, and our largest SS time (9:45) is still in session. We regularly max out parking, so many have to park off-campus.

If you and your staff are considering a shift and have questions, either I, or some other trusted friends who’ve been through shift like mine or a musical style shift, would be happy to talk with you about it!

Generation X: Tolerant of All Types of Church Music?

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I was recently reading a dialogue in a Facebook group I’m a part of that basically said that folks under 35 only want to sing worship music in church like Passion/Bethel/Hillsong, to name a few, while folks over 65 only wanted to sing traditional hymnody in a traditional four-part way—forget any creativity in hymn arrangements. The folks in the conversation then agreed that if all church members were of Generation X age, there wouldn’t be this polarizing disparity in congregational song. Obviously, these comments are not scientific and exceptions abound, but it sounded like something I would agree with. This conversation got me to thinking, “are folks in Generation X more tolerant of varying types of music for musical worship? If they are, why is that?”

I can personally speak to my own experience as someone who falls on the lower end of the 38-62 year old range. I remember as a teen in the late 80s and early 90s, the incorporation of new praise songs in corporate worship joined together with familiar hymnody. Back then, I don’t remember knowing any churches that had multiple services that were altogether different musically. But, by the mid 90s and early 2000s, I knew of many. Could this worship service polarization shift be a major reason why those older as well as those younger than those of us in Generation X feel so passionately about specific types of music for worship? Let’s explore further…

My church musical experiences up to the late 90s, and many of my generational cohort, was more than likely one of musical fluidity in church worship services—all types of music were used in each service (however lame or overly repetitive they might’ve been).   Those of us in Generation X who’ve grown up in the church can remember when churches were unified in their music approach yet had different musical styles. Sure, during this time there were churches that used more traditional or contemporary music (and instrumentation), but by and large, each church had a similar hymnody and basically one style of service.

Why is it that it seems those of us in Generation X are more tolerant of varying kinds of music? Do you believe this to be true as well?

Worship services, during the formative years of many Gen Xers, included lots of musical styles. So, when churches (in the late 1990s and 2000s) decided to segregate into music-specific worship services, many from Generation X were comfortable in any worship scenario. I believe we of Generation X are not as firmly stuck in our “old ways,” as the over 65 crowd. Remember, most Boomers were at least 40 years old during this shift. Being over 40 myself, I can tell you–change its much harder at this age! Likewise, I believe many of our younger Millennials and Generation Z (especially those born since the advent of segregated services) have yet to see passed their own limited experience, which may include internet-based or concert-based worship services. So, much more could be said here, but I think you get the idea.

Without proper research, these questions will remain. What I do believe to be true is people resonant with familiarity. Given to our own devices, all humans default to their comfort zone. Without exposure to multiple types of musical worship, we humans will always resort to the familiar or our preferences. That being the case, I hope that people under my care as worship leader will sing truth with as many available musical types of worship with strong texts. The key is exposure!

I’d love to hear your opinions on why Generation X seems to be more tolerant with music in the church?