Worship leaders pick most of the music, often with no input from the church’s pastor. Almost every church (89%) projects lyrics on a screen, while two-thirds of churches (65%) said they never use hymnals.
NINE REASONS PEOPLE AREN’T SINGING IN WORSHIP
Posted by Kenny Lamm | Feature, Participatory Worship, Top Series, Trending | 661
Worship leaders around the world are sadly changing their church’s worship (often unintentionally) into a spectator event, and people aren’t singing anymore.
Before discussing our present situation, let’s look back into history. Prior to the Reformation, worship was largely done for the people. The music was performed by professional musicians and sung in an unfamiliar language (Latin). The Reformation gave worship back to the people, including congregational singing which employed simple, attainable tunes with solid, scriptural lyrics in the language of the people. Worship once again became participatory. The evolution of the printed hymnal brought with it an explosion of congregational singing and the church’s love for singing increased. With the advent of new video technologies, churches began to project the lyrics of their songs on a screen, and the number of songs at a church’s disposal increased exponentially. [1] At first, this advance in technology led to more powerful congregational singing, but soon, a shift in worship leadership began to move the congregation back to pre-Reformation pew potatoes (spectators).What has occurred could be summed up as the re-professionalization of church music and the loss of a key goal of worship leading – enabling the people to sing their praises to God. Simply put, we are breeding a culture of spectators in our churches, changing what should be a participative worship environment to a concert event. Worship is moving to its pre-Reformation mess.Worship is moving to its pre-Reformation mess.CLICK TO TWEET
I SEE NINE REASONS CONGREGATIONS AREN’T SINGING ANYMORE:
1. THEY DON’T KNOW THE SONGS.
With the release of new songs weekly and the increased birthing of locally-written songs, worship leaders are providing a steady diet of the latest, greatest worship songs. Indeed, we should be singing new songs, but too high a rate of new song inclusion in worship can kill our participation rate and turn the congregation into spectators. I see this all the time. I advocate doing no more than one new song in a worship service, and then repeating the song on and off for several weeks until it becomes known by the congregation. People worship best with songs they know, so we need to teach and reinforce the new expressions of worship. (more)
2. WE ARE SINGING SONGS NOT SUITABLE FOR CONGREGATIONAL SINGING.
There are lots of great, new worship songs today, but in the vast pool of new songs, many are not suitable for congregational singing by virtue of their rhythms (too difficult for the average singer) or too wide of a range (consider the average singer—not the vocal superstar on stage).
3. WE ARE SINGING IN KEYS TOO HIGH FOR THE AVERAGE SINGER.
The people we are leading in worship generally have a limited range and do not have a high range. When we pitch songs in keys that are too high, the congregation will stop singing, tire out, and eventually quit, becoming spectators. Remember that our responsibility is to enable the congregation to sing their praises, not to showcase our great platform voices by pitching songs in our power ranges. The basic range of the average singer is an octave and a fourth from A to D (more).
4. THE CONGREGATION CAN’T HEAR PEOPLE AROUND THEM SINGING.
If our music is too loud for people to hear each other singing, it is too loud. Conversely, if the music is too quiet, generally, the congregation will fail to sing out with power. Find the right balance—strong, but not over-bearing.
5. WE HAVE CREATED WORSHIP SERVICES WHICH ARE SPECTATOR EVENTS, BUILDING A PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENT.
I am a strong advocate of setting a great environment for worship including lighting, visuals, inclusion of the arts, and much more. However when our environments take things to a level that calls undue attention to those on stage or distracts from our worship of God, we have gone too far. Excellence – yes. Highly professional performance – no.
6. THE CONGREGATION FEELS THEY ARE NOT EXPECTED TO SING.
As worship leaders, we often get so involved in our professional production of worship that we fail to be authentic, invite the congregation into the journey of worship, and then do all we can to facilitate that experience in singing familiar songs, new songs introduced properly, and all sung in the proper congregational range. (more)
7. WE FAIL TO HAVE A COMMON BODY OF HYMNODY.
With the availability of so many new songs, we often become haphazard in our worship planning, pulling songs from so many sources without reinforcing the songs and helping the congregation to take them on as a regular expression of their worship. In the old days, the hymnal was that repository. Today, we need to create song lists to use in planning our times of worship. (more)
8. WORSHIP LEADERS AD LIB TOO MUCH.
Keep the melody clear and strong. The congregation is made up of sheep with limited ranges and limited musical ability. When we stray from the melody to ad lib, the sheep try to follow us and end up frustrated and quit singing. Some ad lib is nice and can enhance worship, but don’t let it lead your sheep astray.
9. WORSHIP LEADERS ARE NOT CONNECTING WITH THE CONGREGATION
We often get caught up in our world of amazing music production and lose sight of our purpose of helping the congregation to voice their worship. Let them know you expect them to sing. Quote the Bible to promote their expressions of worship. Stay alert to how well the congregation is tracking with you and alter course as needed. (more)
Once worship leaders regain the vision of enabling the congregation to be participants in the journey of corporate worship, I believe we can return worship to the people once again.
videos
https://www.renewingworshipnc.org/
Big Churches Sound Alike. Little Churches Are the ‘Wild West’ of Music, Study Finds.
By
July 10, 2023
(RNS) — Step into a big Baptist church on Sunday morning and chances are you’ll hear the same popular worship songs played at other big churches around the country.
But show up in a small church, and you never know what you’ll find — anything from “How Great Thou Art” to “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
“Smaller churches are like the Wild West,” said Will Bishop, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “Anything goes.”
Bishop has been working on a recent survey project to better understand the worship music used in local churches, especially smaller congregations, in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
He said companies like Christian Copyright Licensing International — better known as CCLI — do a good job tracking the most popular songs used in churches. But they often miss out on some of the details of worship in local congregations — such as who is picking songs or who plays them. They also miss when churches sing out of hymnals or other songbooks, rather than projecting songs on a screen.
The charts also can leave the impression that the only songs being sung in worship are hits from Hillsong, Bethel and other megachurches.
That’s true in big churches, he said, but not everywhere. Music at big churches is often put together by full-time staffers who have time to track down all the latest songs and follow the latest trends.
“They’re all going to the same conferences; they’re all kind of hanging out with the same people, he said. “If you’re in a small church, you may not have any connections. You’re not going to conferences. You may not know what’s going on in the bigger world.”
Bishop said he started working on his survey to help his students know what to expect when they start working in churches. He sent surveys to more than 900 congregations in five different parts of the country: Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma City and New York, along with rural Colorado and Louisiana.
He eventually collected data from 127 congregations — not a representative national sample, but enough, he said, to give a snapshot of the worship life of local churches. He asked details, like who picked songs, whether churches sang contemporary songs or hymns, whether some songs were banned, as well as asking for a church’s favorite hymns.
Among the findings:
About 1 in 5 churches sang more hymns than modern songs, while a third sang as many hymns as modern tunes. Four in 10 sang more modern songs than hymns. Only 1 in 10 sang mostly modern songs, while the same percentage sang mostly hymns.
Worship leaders pick most of the music, often with no input from the church’s pastor. Almost every church (89%) projects lyrics on a screen, while two-thirds of churches (65%) said they never use hymnals. One in five said women were not allowed to lead worship singing.
About 90 of the churches had banned at least one song: most often songs from charismatic megachurches Bethel and Hillsong. One church banned any songs written by popular worship artist Chris Tomlin, while another banned the popular anthem “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”
Bishop also asked churches to list their favorite hymns, then compiled a list of the most popular contemporary songs. The top song was “Living Hope,” co-written by Phil Wickham, a well-known worship artist, followed by the modern hymn “In Christ Alone,” and then three older hymns: “It Is Well with My Soul,” “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.”
The resilience of hymns can get overlooked if you just look at the top 20 charts of worship songs, said Bishop, which mostly feature new songs.
“Hymn singing is not dead,” he said. “At least among Southern Baptists.”
At Owingsville Baptist Church in Owingsville, Kentucky, services feature a mix of contemporary songs and older hymns, said Waynanne Caudill, who helps lead singing on Sundays.
Services usually start with a contemporary song, like “Living Hope,” and there’s often another contemporary song before the sermon. The pastor often picks those songs, said Caudill, hoping that newer songs will appeal to younger families in the congregation. Church members will also sing four or five hymns.
Despite being a small-town church — Owingsville has one stoplight and a Walmart, said Caudill — about half the church, which draws around 50 people, is made up of younger folks.
Caudill says she likes the mix of hymns and more modern songs — even though she’d prefer to sing songs by older Christian artists like the late Rich Mullins and the late Keith Green. She’s OK with more modern songs — but the Hillsong hit “Oceans” never sat right with her.
“The song says I’m going to walk on the water and most days I’m really not,” she said. “And that has weighed on me. You know, I want some more real stuff.”
Her favorite: “Oh, Lord, You’re Beautiful,” by Green.
Bishop’s survey is based on an influential 1938 study that helped shape Southern Baptist church music in the 20th century. Published in 1939, that study used survey techniques popularized by George Gallup to gather data from 1,093 local congregations.
That survey found most churches (83.7%) used a piano for services, while 18% had reed organs — also known as pump organs — and relatively few (4.8%) had pipe organs. One in 20 (4.8%) had no instruments at all.
About half of the churches spent no money on their music programs in 1938, and few had trained professionals on staff. Music was led most often (58.8%) by a male quartet, while 6.95% of churches had orchestras.
Several smaller surveys found that about a third of churches had choirs (1952) and that large churches were more likely to have a full-time janitor than a minister of music (1956).
Bishop’s new survey found that today almost three-quarters (72%) of churches have a worship band, while just over a third (36.5%) have an adult choir. However, only 7% have a junior choir, which he saw as a worrisome sign that churches weren’t investing in the future of their music programs.
The 1938 survey also included a list of favorite songs among churches. The most popular song was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” followed by “I Am Thine, Oh Lord,” “Standing on the Promises,” “Have Thine Own Way” and “The Old Rugged Cross.”
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” didn’t make the list of most popular songs in Bishop’s survey, but several others that appeared in the 1938 list remain popular, including “Amazing Grace,” “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
Martin Cherry, an associate pastor and worship leader at Flatonia Baptist Church in Texas, said the congregation often sings “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and other older hymns during services, though with a more modern arrangement. The church had been mostly traditional till about a decade ago and slowly transitioned to more contemporary music.
Cherry said he and other leaders try to pick songs that fit the church’s identity, rather than trying to copy the latest trends.
“When churches try to push too hard, in different styles of music, it’s like asking your people to put on a costume, pretending to be something you’re not.”
He said “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” feels more relevant in the COVID era, given how isolated and divided people feel.
The church tried singing “Living Hope,” which is popular in other churches, but it just didn’t take.
Bishop’s survey did include some surprising results. He’d heard that some churches will play secular songs in services and decided to ask if that was the case. Some of the responses seemed to fit in church, like Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.” Others, like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” left him scratching his head.
If a church really was doing a singalong of the John Denver hit during services, “I’d like to see a video of that,” said Bishop.
WHO SHOULD PICK THE SONGS?
JANUARY 11, 2016
https://worshipleader.com/leadership/who-should-pick-the-songs/
How can you determine what songs are best for your church?
Who ought to be selecting them?
Is it best that you do it by yourself, or by working with others in the worship ministry to select the songs for each week, so the songs selected are not all songs you personally select?
There are many Scriptures that speak to making wise plans by relying on others:
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. – Proverbs 15:22
Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety. – Proverbs 11:14
For by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory. – Proverbs 24:6
There is obviously wisdom and safety found in the multitude of counsel. As it pertains to the crafting of the congregational worship experience, it can be beneficial in a variety of ways.
For one, having multiple sources of perspective collaborating together does tend to make it easier to examine possible problems with a particular song. Is it biblically true, and doctrinally accurate? Does it serve to illuminate the scripture being taught that weekend? Do its themes serve the season that the church body is in at the moment? Is it a familiar enough song? Is it accessible for the average person to be able to actually sing it? Is the melody simple enough to be memorable? Is it too technical of a song for the worship musicians to be able to give it proper service? Does it reflect traditions of the church that we desire to retain as part of our church makeup? Is it a new song that needs to be taught or reinforced through repetition? Is it a song intentionally included in high rotation? Is it obscure? Is it the best song choice, given the limited amount of time available in the weekend service devoted to worship music?
With leaders of different perspectives adding their individual voices to the conversation, different flavors are contributed which may not have been present had only one person been involved in the song selection process. Different genres of music might be represented in the mix that might otherwise be absent, and more creative approaches to the big picture of the flow of worship, not only for a particular weekend, but for coming weeks and months, can be brought to serve the needs of the church as a whole.
Bringing multiple leaders to reason together is a good exercise for the leaders themselves. Working out that sharing muscle, cooperating together, being co-laborers in Christ, and learning to play nicely in the same sandbox with the other kids, is a very good thing. Different opinions can be shared, and yet the leaders can work together for the common goal and achieve greater unity for the sake of God’s purposes in this body. It is also helpful for these leaders to see the long-term view, keeping in consideration the Bible verses which are coming down the pipeline, and forecasting together which song selections will best serve the body as those verses are taught. Agreeing together which new songs will be introduced, and which older songs will be refreshed and brought back to life.
The team approach is helpful for the growth and development of younger worship leaders, so they can see the example of more mature leaders working together and cooperating to craft worship for the church, learning to plan out in advance. In our church in particular, that would be especially beneficial.
The team approach is helpful for the one given the responsibility of oversight, because it provides safety, in that it takes away a possible area of contention that members of the body might have personally as a result of song selection that they didn’t agree with. When there is a group selecting the songs together in consensus, while one person may have to give the final approval or make a judgment call, the unity of the group in agreement provides strength and legitimacy to the selection. There is no one person to blame or to applaud. It doesn’t fall on just one person’s shoulders to catch the criticism for a set of songs poorly received, nor is that person at risk of getting an inappropriately prideful attitude for a set of songs received with gladness.
The team approach is helpful as well for the body in this regard – if there is not a single person to blame or to applaud, it takes away a distraction that the enemy could use as a foothold to drive a wedge of disunity into the body. It’s not as easy to attack or gossip about a group of people as it is to attack just one person; word gets around faster when more people are involved, so there is motivation to not be a gossip or slanderer in the first place. Plus, if there is a solid group of leaders working together for a common purpose, there’s a higher amount of regard and respect paid for their efforts, as compared to how people may perceive the efforts of just one working alone.
On a biblical note related to this question, there is not anything particularly wrong with the person given the responsibility of oversight of worship for the church body actually being the person to pick the songs for the church body, especially if he works in partnership with and submission to the lead pastor to ensure the songs serve the needs of the body, work in conjunction with the scripture being taught, and are approved by the lead pastor. It’s simply that working in isolation is not the most beneficial approach to leadership. It’s not only that a team approach has greater benefits, but that it also helps to prevent burnout and failure!
When you back up and look at the scenario from a different perspective, it seems rather silly that someone would take the teaching pastor to task on his own selection of the particular verses of scripture he was teaching on. He has been given oversight for that particular ministry and entrusted with that responsibility, so he should exercise oversight in that area. It is reasonable and prudent.
Similarly, it is reasonable and prudent for the leader given oversight of worship to exercise the actual oversight of worship, and select the songs being utilized in service. There is nothing wrong with that. Certainly any worship leader can approach God directly in prayer and contemplation and ask the Lord for wisdom in selecting songs. How much more so then, one given oversight by the church and entrusted with the responsibility?
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. – James 1:5
At my own church, for three years I made it a consistent weekly habit to review all song selections with my lead pastor and get his approval before sharing them with the team for that weekend. I normally find out the scripture verses he will be teaching on well in advance (sometimes up 8 to 10 weeks in advance) and begin studying those scriptures, researching worship songs that might be born from those verses and usable for the services, looking for themes in the passages that certain songs would support and reinforce.
Additionally, I do take into consideration the season the church is in: are people hurting or wrestling in particular areas as a whole? Are there certain songs that seem to be resounding with the majority of the church body, serving to lead them more effectively into worship than other songs? Are there songs that do not seem to be received well, which need to be dropped from the roster? Are there older songs that should be included to reflect the traditions of the church? Are there newer songs that people would want to sing, that they’ve been hearing on Christian radio or worship albums? Are there songs generated from within our own church body that would serve to usher the family into God’s presence?
I made it a habit to meet quarterly with all the worship leaders at CBC together as a council, to discuss worship in the various areas they are entrusted with, as well as worship for the church as a whole. I have made it a habit to meet with some worship leaders weekly, or multiple times a week, to discuss worship for the church. I’ve routinely asked for input from members of the worship ministry, other ministry leaders, and church members. Song selection had never truly been mine alone.
However, given the wisdom and safety and the benefits to the body as well as to the leaders, myself, and our lead pastor, it made sense to form a creative team that would collaborate solely on song selection and worship service flow. I approached several people to invite them to be part of a monthly brainstorming session, providing input and perspective in the process of selecting songs to be used in worship at our church. We started with the more mature worship leaders first, and it has thus far been tremendously positive for all involved! The meetings are encouraging and fun, and extremely productive – knocking out a month’s worth of song selections at a time! We’ll be inviting the developing worship leaders to participate down the line as well, so they can benefit from the process too, learning how to cooperate and collaborate together as they grow in their gifts.
So how are you selecting your songs? Do you include and empower others to participate in the process? If you don’t, I challenge you to examine closely your process, and see if the Lord might have a better way for you to accomplish this important task of selecting the songs. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised and blessed!!
Brendan Prout is a pastor at Community Bible Church in San Diego, CA, where he oversees worship and outreach. He has served in worship ministry leadership for over 20 years and focuses on training and raising others to do the work of ministry they are called to.
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