This is part 3 in a 3 part series on choosing the right songs for your church to sing.

You can read part 1 here: “Songs God Wants to Hear”

You can read part 2 here: “Songs People Want to Sing”

Over this 3 part series we are unpacking how to select songs that…

1.) God wants to hear
2.) People want to sing
3.) Musicians want to play

It’s so difficult to assess what makes a “good” song and that’s not what I’m going to attempt to do, but I do believe that there are songs that musicians enjoy playing and songs that we don’t enjoy playing.  I think it’s impossible to always select songs that musicians love to play, but I think that if you cast vision well musicians will love to play every song… but still some more than others  : )

This is not about selecting songs to serve your musicians, it’s about selecting songs that will inspire and empower the worship musicians to serve the church with excitement and excellence.

My friend and 12Stone Music Director Russell Allen says that everyone has their version of musical interpretation.  Meaning every musician hears a song and plays that song from a personal place.  We hear things differently, we execute things differently, we even have styles of music that we prefer and styles we don’t like as much.  While I respect every genre of music, I prefer Alt Country, Rock n Roll, and Hip Hop.  I don’t listen to a lot of pop music or pop country music.  You may feel completely opposite.

In the church you’re typically taking musicians with a multitude of different musical backgrounds and trying to unite them under a common vision to create moments where the church can worship God together through singing.  It’s difficult enough to find songs that serve your church well, songs that people will sing, and now your faced with the challenge of finding songs that the musicians and singers on your team, as different as they can be, really enjoy playing together.Let’s talk about 3 things…

I believe that selecting songs that musicians want to play begins with setting the expectation for the musicians.  Does your team understand how worshipping together serves and lives within the specific vision of your church?  Because that’s very important.  This is where you have to opportunity to help players find joy even in the songs that they don’t enjoy as much in terms of production style or genre.

You have less conversations about the musical nature of a song being good or bad when the focus is on the function of the song within the vision.  Don’t get me wrong you want to have constructive conversations about song quality, but no one wants a teams member ripping on a song during a Sunday morning rehearsal in front of the whole team.  That can really negativity effect the vibe of the team.

Worship Pastors/Leaders need to know how to be great vision casters and help our teams understand that even within songs that aren’t our personal preference we can still find great joy in playing them by focusing on how that particular song is serving the vision of the church.

Here are some things to consider…

What music serves the vision of your church?
Can you communicate the vision behind the songs you choose?
Do your musicians understand and support the musical vision of the church

If your teams understand the vision of the church and how musical worship serves within that vision make sure and be a good listener.  Musicians only talk about 2 things; music and gear… and mostly gear  : )

We started doing “Lion and the Lamb” by Leeland/Bethel a few months ago and the reason it even came on the radar was because of the great guitar hook at the beginning.  A lot of our guitar players immediately started talking about that song and so we checked it out, and man, the whole team was excited about that song.  It was definitely a song that God wanted our church to sing during this season, people wanted to sing it, and our musicians were excited about playing it.  It was a huge win for our church.

Make sure to be open and be a great listener.  Your musicians will even bring up songs and bands that you’ve never even heard of.  No one can keep up with it all.  Maybe you should start a spotify playlist with your team to share your favorite worship songs.  We do that among our worship pastors at 12Stone and that’s where almost all of our new songs come from.

Here are some things to consider…

What songs do you hear your musicians talking about?
Ask them what musically excites them about playing those songs?
Do you have an open forum like Spotify to share new songs?

Potentially the first thing that comes to mind you think of songs musicians love to play is something that is challenging, something with great riffs, licks, or melody lines that has some sort of difficulty involved.  That can certainly be the case, but it’s not always the case.  The songs I personally enjoy more aren’t difficult to play at all.  It’s just a song that stirs something in me.  It doesn’t have to be technically difficult.  I can enjoy playing the same 3 chord Tom Petty song over and over simply because it stirs something in me.  So whether the song is challenging doesn’t matter as much to me as whether the song stirs something within me.

I don’t know how to quantify what makes a song stir in me or not.  Some just do and some just don’t, but when I really enjoy a song it has a massive effect on how I play it, how I express myself on stage, and how I spiritually and emotionally engage with the song.

I want to select songs that God wants us to sing as a church, I want to select songs that people want to sing as the church, but I also want to select songs that stir something in the hearts of the musicians that are playing the songs because I want our musicians to play well, enjoy themselves, and express that joy and that gratitude to God for letting us enjoy what we do.

And whether or not the song stirs in me, I pray the Holy Spirit always does because the power of the Holy Spirit can breathe life and inspire in the places we feel uninspired and I certainly pray it does.

Here are some things to consider…

What songs or artists always seem to stir something in you?
Will you ask the Holy Spirit to inspire you and stir in you even if the song doesn’t?
Can we remember that our musical gratification is a gift and not something we’re entitled to?

I certainly hope this has been a helpful series on selecting the right songs for your church to sing.  Remember selecting songs is easy, but selecting the right songs takes prayer, thought, and hard work.  Don’t settle for mediocrity in your song selection.  Work hard to select the best songs you can to serve your church well.

1.) Does your worship team know the vision of how musical worship serves the vision of your church?
2.) What songs are musicians talking about?
3.) What songs have been stirring in your lately?  Try and figure out why…