The Best Way to Choose Songs for Your Congregation... Every Time

When it comes to worship music, we enjoy a wide range of genres, artists, and settings. The only catch is: It's not all suitable for congregational worship. How, then, do we sift through the stacks and find the best songs to use on Sunday morning?

When I choose songs for Sunday worship, I look at three criteria:

• Content

• Range

• Style

In order to have a music set that accomplishes our purpose of glorifying God and edifying His church, these three areas must combine together in a way that maximizes accessibility and understanding. Let's break it down...

1. Content: Ultimately, our worship points to God as the source, ruler, and redeemer of His creation. In practice, songs directly addressing His nature and work are most suitable for group singing because it's our largest shared theme as Christians. Songs of testimony (using first-person perspective) have their place, but they're often super-specific, which means they're best used to supplement a larger framework of confessing the Gospel through song.

2. Range: Many modern worship songs you hear on streaming or radio cater to an artist's abilities, but they leave average congregations in a wake of un-singable songs, simply because the melodic range is too great. Generally, your average congregant is comfortable up to a 10th, with the occasional ability to go beyond, but that often necessitates an octave displacement for either high or low voices, depending on the key. Aim for staying in that octave range, but if you're required to go beyond that, then choose melodies that fit a simple, smooth style. (We'll talk about style in #3.)

3. Style: Simple is best when it comes to style. Decorations on the melody should accent what you and the congregation are singing, so err to "less is more" if you're inspired to throw in vocal runs or modifications to a melody. Contour of a melody is also important. Steps and small skips are the easiest to sing, and leaps like a 4th or a 5th are familiar enough in our popular experience for congregants to pull off. Intervals like 6ths and octave leaps are tougher, which can be frustrating for everyday or below-average singers to keep up with.

What happens if you don't adhere to these guidelines? Well, you end up with: 

• Content that glorifies a transaction of blessing in itself, rather than it being a component of a larger picture of God's sovereignty and grace.

• Range and stylings that frustrate and distract the majority of your fellow believers during worship in song.

On the other side, if your content, range, and style check all the boxes in celebrating the nature and work of God in a doable delivery, then your worship experience is more consistently set up for a fulfilling encounter with God in that portion of the service.

Be blessed 👊✌️