There are great albums full of songs for the church to sing released all the time.  There are thousands of great worship songs being written each year and not only can we easily find them and listen thanks to Apple Music or Spotify, but now many of those songs are incredibly resourced as well.  There are multitracks, chord charts, samples, keyboard sounds, guitar tutorials, etc… that are just a click away.  Not to mention the thousands of classic hymns and songs of worship that we have sung together for generations.

So with all these great songs and resources available how do you select the songs that serve your church the best?  Selecting songs is easy.  Selecting the right songs for your church is more difficult.  It takes prayer, work, thought, and research.  Over the next few posts I want to discuss three things to consider as guidelines for selecting the best songs for your church to sing.

Here is what we will unpack over the next few posts:

1.) Songs God Wants To Hear

2.) Songs People Want To Sing

3.) Songs Musicians Want To Play

Obviously, the goal of worship is to put God first and give Him glory.  Since he is the first priority and the object of our worship it makes sense that we want to sing songs that please his heart. Songs that bring him honor, that proclaim truth about him.  Here are 3 things to help discover songs that God wants to hear your church sing.

This may seem obvious, but the first thing to listen for is truth about God.  John 4 teaches us that true worshippers worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth.  Does the song your considering say things that are true about God.  Read the lyrics out loud like your reading a story and see if there is anything in the song that you think is untrue or even something that could cause confusion about the nature of God or the truth of His Word.

I don’t presume people singing half truths about God on purpose or even promoting incorrect theology, but I do believe that the theological statements of what we sing are slightly different from denomination to denomination and even church to church.  Think about what God’s Word says and what your church believes and press it up against the lyrics of the song.Maybe there is a lyric in the song that your church won’t understand immediately or that they may misinterpret.  Do you want to explain it and use it to teach or should you just avoid it? Here are some questions to consider…

Is the song theologically correct?
Does the song require explanation or clarity?
Does the song push our understanding of God in a good way?
Does the song teach us something new about God or refresh a great truth?

[Supportive Of The Vision]

I believe that every Christian church has the same common vision.  We all subscribe to the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-21).  However, I believe that God also has unique visions for each church in his Kingdom as well.

Most churches have a more specific focus within the common vision. Some are focused on foreign mission work, some on the sacraments, some on reaching the lost, some on the gifts of the Spirit.

When selecting new worship songs think about the specific vision of your church.  God gave us all the call to love him, love others, and share the Gospel, but God has also trusted your church with a specific vision and singing songs with your church that encourage both the common and specific vision of your church is a great thing.  Look for those songs.  God wants to hear us sing in support of the vision He has entrusted to us.  Here are some questions to consider…

Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there is a season for everything.  Different seasons bring a different focus, different priorities, different challenges, and more.  God brings us through seasons as people and together as a church and that is something we have to pay attention to as we are selecting songs for the church to sing.

Maybe the church is going through a season of an intense focus on missions or maybe a season of focusing on evangelism.  We have recently been in a season of what we’ve called “awakening” and that has definitely impacted the songs we are choosing to sing together.

But it’s not just what season the church may be in, we also need to consider what’s going on in the world around us.  If there is divide sing songs of unity, if there is tragedy sing songs of hope, if there is hate sing songs of love.  For everything the world may throw at us there is a song that declares Jesus is the antidote.  I believe God wants us to sing timely songs.  Here are some questions to consider…

What is going on in our church?
Do we have a specific focus?
What’s going on in our community?  In the world?

God wants us to sing songs that proclaim his truth and things that are true about him. He also wants us to sing songs that support not only the common vision for our churches, but the specific visions as well.  Lastly, I believe that God wants us to sing songs that are timely for the season he is leading us through as a church. Let’s be prayerful and purposeful in the songs we choose to sing and approach the Lord with confidence as we worship Him.

1.) Be prayerful and purposeful about the songs we choose
2.) Sing songs that God wants to hear
3.) Sing songs that are truthful, support of vision, and timely