As a Worship Council, we recently decided to try something new.
On Sunday night, February 16th, we hosted a Night of Worship.
I know many of you love to worship through song, but I didn’t know what kind of turn out to expect. We didn’t talk about it very much, so we didn’t expect a lot of people. So when 150 people showed up and the engagement in singing was incredible we were thrilled! We had LOTS of people requesting that we do more of those evenings and continue to get those requests! We will definitely make it happen again!
[Editor’s note: In the meantime, you can watch the video recording right here!]
We played a wide variety of songs that night and at least a couple that we’ve never sang together on a Sunday morning. I had a few people suggest some songs we could sing for the next time.
As you might guess, from time to time I receive song suggestions from the congregation. While sometimes we end up singing the song that is suggested, other times we don’t. We’re not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I know that most of us have songs we love to use in our own private or family worship that mean a lot to us (I know I do).
We (the Worship Council) put a lot of time into considering new songs that we might add to our repertoire. I thought you might be interested to know how we critique songs that we are considering, as we’ve talked about this quite a bit recently as a staff and as a Worship Council. Here’s a few of the criteria we use when considering adding a new song:
Truth: Based on Grace’s value of Upholding Biblical Integrity, and the Worship Ministry’s value of Theology before Feeling, the most important thing about a song is truth (John 4:23-24, Colossians 3:16). Is there anything the song says that doesn’t line up with Scripture? Or are the lyrics simply too vague and could be misunderstood? What truth does this song help the church to understand and articulate about God? Notice it is Theology before Feeling, not theology as opposed to feeling. Truth deeply affects our feelings. Truth coupled with beautiful music that compliments the lyrics affects us on an even deeper level. Music should reflect the lyrics.
Singability: Based on the worship ministry’s value of Participation not Performance, we seek to sing songs that are “singable”. While some songs beautifully display talent that God has given musicians (which we use for special music), we pick songs with ranges that work well for the largest number of people. We choose songs with memorable melodies that are more simple and easy to catch on to.
Well-Rounded Theology: Does the song we are looking at help round out our theology? Does the song say the same things that many of the other songs in our repertoire say? Does the song help to articulate theology that is missing from our repertoire? We don’t want to add song after song about God’s love, and neglect to sing about his other attributes. We ask, “Why should the church sing this song?”
There are other things we think about when considering adding new songs to our repertoire, like our style of worship as established by the Elders: “blended leaning towards contemporary”. That means we still sing some of the great old hymns but we sing more contemporary songs than old ones, and often sing old songs with a more contemporary feel.
I want to remind you that you can worship at home with the songs we sing on Sunday morning through YouTube or Spotify!
I’m looking forward to Sunday when Nathan Ehresman will be preaching from Psalm 136, and we’ll lift our voices together in praise to our Creator and Redeemer!
Please be praying for the Amigo team as they leave for Reynosa on Saturday.
For His glory,
-Pastor Kyle