8. Look for a balance between new songs and old songs.
On the one hand, people sing well when singing an old and beloved song. On the other hand, old songs can wear out, which can lead to thoughtless singing.
On the one hand, songs that are new to a congregation (whether recently composed or not) are harder to sing. On the other hand, a congregation’s musical repertoire should grow as the congregation grows in maturity and depth.
Congregations, like people, go through different seasons, and new songs help it to grow through those seasons. All these hands mean that helping people to sing well involves both new and old songs, and figuring out the balance for your church.
Never be closed to learning new songs, whether they are newly composed or old songs that are new to you. And teach those new songs more than once.
9. Use songs that represent a broad range of human experience and emotion.
If all a church’s music is exultant and gladsome, much of your church’s singing will be inauthentic and affected. How true to life are they lyrics of “I Hear the Words of Love”: “My love is ofttimes low/My joy still ebbs and flows/But peace with Him remains the same/No change my Savior knows.” Or that frank admission from “Come Thou Fount”: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it/Prone to leave the God I love … .”
A church’s hymnody, like the Psalter, should have words for happy Christians, sad Christians, tempted Christians and all the in-between Christians. Along these lines, a congregation is served by having a repertoire of 300 songs rather than 30.
Life is complex and diverse. So should our worship be.
10. Vary the way a song is sung.
Just as a preacher might speak the same words with a different tone between one Sunday and the next, adjusting for the mood of the day or the sermonic context in which the words are spoken, so a song might be led differently at different times.
The dynamics of the accompaniment might vary. Maybe the volume rises; maybe it falls. Maybe that third stanza is sung quietly, maybe vigorously. Maybe a key change, maybe not. Maybe a cappella, maybe not.
Certainly the text of a song should shape the mood of the accompaniment, but so can the mood of the church’s life or the place it occurs in the church service.
11. Where possible, arrange chairs or pews with some facing each other and not just the stage.
Singing is a “team” effort, and often the only part of the worship that is a visible expression of togetherness. This is one way to remember the fact that Paul says to “speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19).
There is nothing wrong with closing one’s eyes when singing, to be sure, but the picture painted by Paul sounds like people are looking at one another! Church is not the place for a turbo-charged quiet time.
