What makes a good worship song?
As a worship leader, part of my responsibilities include choosing songs that people can relate to in worship.
As a songwriter, first of all a great many songs will never make it to those who listen to my music. I tend to write from different angles. One of the places I write from is prayer. So a lot of times my songs come out initially sounding like prayers. There is a reason for that 🙂 . I also, tend to write a lot out of frustration, or disappointment, or any number of unhappy feelings. These are the reasons a lot of songs don’t make it out. I have to decide which ones I feel others may be able to relate to and which ones are just me talking to God (in actuality, they are all me talking to God, some are just easier for others to relate to than others).
I say all that to say, I understand what the songwriter goes through. I also know, however, that a lot of what gets used in church comes from songwriters with the “Nashville Songwriting Formula” that no one knows about but those who are privy to it’s use. They go into the studio on Monday morning and bang out a song by mid-afternoon and a few months of production later, it’s in a church near you.
So, now we come full circle to which songs do we use on Sunday morning? First of all, I think it’s important to know who you are ministering to. If you have a church of 100 members, 95% of which are above the age of 65, and this is reflective of the demographic of your area (which it may not be, so you should research that as well), you may be wasting your time to use a lot of Chris Tomlin, Lincoln Brewster, Charlie Hall, David Crowder, Fee, etc. By contrast, if your demographic and your congregation is primarily in their 20’s and 30’s and very few are over the age of 65, you may be shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t open up to some new music and continue to sing the same old 100 year old hymns over and over.
On the other hand, maybe the latter scenario is the one that describes your church and the demographic of the immediate area, but, the primary music of choice for the area is hip hop, it might behoove you to look into a hip hop service.
WARNING: Just because these types of music are easy for your congregation to relate to, doesn’t mean the songs are good for use just because they fall into a certain genre. Example: Maybe Reggae is the music of choice for your service and you are choosing your Sunday morning song. If you come across a reggae song that says in it “God is a big cosmic meanie”, would you still use it? (Disclaimer: I don’t know if there is a song like that and if there is, it is just a big coincedence and my extreme apologies to the artist). You have to keep the lyrics in line with biblical teachings. That doesn’t mean, however, that just because someone picks a verse out of the bible and throws it in a song, that suddenly it is a good worship tune.
Anyhow, I think now I am rambling, so I will open it up to thoughts and suggestions. What do you think makes a good worship song?
Filed under: Christianity, church relevance, faith, God, religion, Worship, Worship Music, Worship Songs | 3 Comments
Tags: Christianity, church relevance, faith, God, Music, Relevance, religion, Worship, Worship Music, Worship Songs
Confessions of a Worship Leader 
I believe a good worship song is one that I can find and lose myself in. Many times when I hear a certain song during worship on Sunday morning, it transports me to an entirely different place in the service. It’s a song that I will not only be able to find where I am and supposed to be–take Tim Hughes’ “Here I am to Worship”–but it will remind me of God’s greatness. Genre doesn’t matter to me as long as I can find where I belong in the music and as long as I can find God in the moment of worship. And I’d like to believe that is all any congregant needs in worship service. They just need to be able to commune with God through the music and also find a piece of themselves in it. It’s the singing of a verse like “I’ll never know, how much it cost, to see my sins, upon that cross,” that really bring out true worship for those who are looking for true worship. So maybe, the long story short of this is that God makes a good worship song. As long as the music is always exalting him, praising him and reminding us of his character, we can never go wrong.
I believe the strongest worship songs, are those that are simply written w/ verses and choruses that can repeat with easy, very infectious. too many worship leaders pick deep wordy songs w/ great messages but they are hard for a congregation to follow. Let all face it if the song is too wordy we spend more time staring at a screen reading lyrics and atempting to keep up w/ the worship leader who they them selfs haven’t fully grasped the song, Why are so many churches leaving people behind by trying to be so deep, instead of letting the spirit of God move, we should almost enter worship w/ the heart of a child with a love an a innocents. Most churches are about 25% worshippers and 75% Sunday morning pue sitters. A worshiper will worship so let us bring the others along with us instead running on a head and leaving thoughs behind, let’s begin to elevate the church back to a place of honor where God desires it to be and watch God move through everyone..