As you and your worship leadership team approach the New Year, I would like to encourage you to do an exercise we did several years ago.
We were a small but vibrant fellowship. Our worship leader was a gifted musician and songwriter who led contemporary worship music, hymns and CCM songs accompanied by a modest rhythm section and a few singers. Our music library was contained in alphabetized folders in a rolling file cart.
Our congregation was our choir.
As I remember, our worship leader called our team together one Saturday morning and we went through our entire music library and...
- We prioritized the "must-have" songs that were part of our congregation’s unique history and spiritual heritage. Some of these songs were obscure and even quirky, but they had become part of our worship DNA. Because we wanted these songs to continue to be celebrated by our congregants and learned by newcomers, we made it a point to put these songs in a regular rotation.
- Likewise, we intentionally retired songs that had somehow become irrelevant to who we were and where we were going. It wasn’t that these songs were necessarily bad (although I’m sure some weren’t that good); it’s just that they no longer fit.
- Next, we made a list of existing (though perhaps unfamiliar) songs that we wanted to incorporate into our congregational music program.
- Many of us brought samples of new worship music to the meeting to share. After playing the songs, we added some fresh, new music to our list that we felt would help our congregation worship the Lord.
- Understanding that we couldn't introduce too many new songs at once, we sketched out a calendar to help our congregation learn the songs.
This process produced a very rich worship environment for our church--and I treasure the deeper relationships that were forged with other members of our team during that process.
I would challenge any worship pastor and team to consider this exercise. It blessed us tremendously.
For more thoughts on developing your congregation’s unique worship songbook, check out Adam Kurihara’s insightful blog, “Leading Worship Through Songlist Curation.”