WORSHIP NOTE – “Retire that Song?”
January 21, 2009
Psalm 147:1 “Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him!”
My heart becomes softer, fuller and better prepared to receive God’s Word after a time of authentic, transcendent worship through song. I know I’m ‘preaching to the choir’ here but I believe that this is a great argument for not sending a song into retirement too quickly. There’s no question that this is especially difficult for us restless, creative, worship leader types who want to keep things ‘fresh’. However, those we minister to may often have quite a different feeling about it.
When we repeat songs in our services throughout the year, for the congregation it becomes less and less about reading and learning the words, and more and more about the content. The meaning of the song can begin to plunge to deeper levels of understanding and, consequently, a more engaging expression of worship. Think about it, repetition helps us to memorize facts and figures and lots of other more trivial things. I actually have my credit card number memorized…how scary is that? Repetition also helps us absorb and internalize the words of our worship songs. When the words projected on a screen or written on a song sheet are no longer part of the focus we can just close our eyes, block out the world and those around us and simply, completely and utterly worship.
Patrick DeRemer has been the Worship Leader for 10 years at Gold Coast Christian Church, a regional church in Ventura County, CA. He is also the creator of a new website; praisevocals.com. The site was developed primarily for Worship Leaders. It offers downloadable audio files of vocal harmony parts of popular praise and worship songs.
Related posts:
- When Should A Worship Song Be Retired?
- What Makes a Great Worship Song?
- 6 Tips for Memorizing Lyrics
- How Much Diversity Should We Use in Song Selection for Worship?
- Aaron Keyes “Blessing And Honour” – Story Behind The Song
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Excellent encouragement Patrick! The new songs are great….but mix in that familiar lyiric and melody and the people’s spirits rise. Thanks for your words!
I completely agree Patrick – I am constantly reminding my team of mainly teens that even though we’ve done this song a gazillion times in rehearsals and services, for many in the congregation they may only hear it once or twice a month.
But we (as leaders) can’t stop there either. Worship needs to stay fresh in the team too, and it’s up to us to ensure that happens in the songs that might otherwise be getting tired, just as much as to recognise when the season for a song might be over for now.
Good point. We’re going though a musical reformation currently. We cut out list from around 150 songs to 20, and we plan to keep our list from 20-30 songs. We’ll cycle in and out stuff, but we’ll keep it around 20-30. Here’s our reasoning:
1) Fewer songs mean that the band can eventually do the songs memorized and not have to worry about what they’re playing and can even be freer to worship with the congregation.
2) Less songs means that we can be really picky. We made sure that if we’re cutting our list this much, that the songs really say something. The lyrics are rich, the melodies are easy, and it’s the type of song that you can listen to a lot before it gets old.
3) It’ll over all improve the quality of what we do because we’ll spend less time working on new music, and more time perfecting what we already know.
4) We’re wanting to move into a freer worship time. This means that, as a leader, I can move the song where I feel the congregation’s hearts are at rather than trying to stick to one single order.
5) Just like you said in this post. Fewer songs means more repetition, which means that the congregation is also freer to sing without being reliant on the powerpoint.
If any worship leader hasn’t considered these things… I would challenge them to at least think about and consider this.
Nice job, Patrick! Your thoughts on this are spot on. I have NEVER retired a song. Some don’t get played, for one reason or another, but I have a folder of 10 to 20 songs that I am constantly working on new arrangements for.
Smitty
I agree with your article… I have watched our church grow in this area… they finally “get it” and close their eyes and worship… or even praise more on the fast songs. My situation is I do 3 services a weekend (Sat night, and 9am & 11am on Sunday) plus a wednesday night service. Tthat is my where I have to trust in God to help me and my teams to keep it fresh…great article!!
Constantly learning new songs is somewhat tiresome for the worship team and the congregation really does not like a constant stream of new songs. It’s a lot of work for the piano player and singers to look them up, and we find that for the most part we play songs we’ve heard on radio, or while visiting other churches, or from books we’ve purchased to work through. We make a point of NOT playing songs over and over again. We keep a list going of our services and refer to it when making up the new list. I agree with James that playing a certain series of songs is good, especially if you have a theme going, but I would caution against repeating them ad nauseum, as it will become vain repetition. There are 150 Psalms, so let that be your guide! The congregation, and the worship team is going to be pretty tired of the same songs (something like Christmas carols over and over). I believe the worship team should have the song reasonably mastered (3 practices) before presenting to the congregation. If they can’t learn it in 3 practices, how do you think it will go over with the church? We’ve heard it’s good to cycle in a new song every week, but this may be difficult for a small team. We learn songs as the Spirit leads, and if they are playable by the piano first of all, singable by the worship team, and also playable on guitar if possible, but not essential. I attended a service somewhere once (large church), where if you stopped the loud music, you would realize no one could sing the songs as they were too complicated. Once they switching to a familiar hymn, every person in the place was worshipping. Before then, it was entertainment tonight. So finding a balance is important.
Great stuff! I am trying to bring up this point to my worship team. A lot of them feel that if we don’t do anything new than we will loose the people but it is actually vice versa. If we stick with what we have (and about 2 a month still bring a new song) the congregation will be able to absorb the song and have no limits with have to learn it. Great post!
Very true. There are certain standards of the faith as far as music goes, songs that are hundreds of years old that everyone belts out from the heart from the first verse. There is absolutely no reason that a more contemporary song couldn’t fill the same role within a congregation and bring people to that same place of completely unencumbered worship with abandon.
@Johnny Sierra
Chances are that for every 1 time the congregation hears a song, the band has heard it a minimum of 5 times (possibly even around 10 times). This means that if the congregation has heard a song 3 times, the band has heard it 15-30 times. I guess it may be best to keep reminding them that we’re serving the congregation above our own preferences.
@Rosa
I think that it’s the mark of a good leader to realize when songs either just aren’t resonating with the congregation or when they need to be played less.
To be completely honest though. I’ve found that sense I’ve been using a shorter play list it allows for me to only use the “best of the best,” which also means that a lot of the songs we use are great songs textually. Also, if you have songs that are textually rich, then you can often find more depth to the song each time you sing it. Discovering new depths in songs keep them “alive” longer. This also doesn’t mean that we never bring in new songs either. Because I’m so picky with text, I’m constantly searching for new songs. Usually when a song is ready to be cycled out… or maybe even just played less… I have usually new song to take it’s place.
@James
I would be very interested in receiving your list of 20-30 songs!
We do find that some songs fit better with certain themes (communion, child dedication, sermon theme if we know it in advance). How do you cope with that?
I’m not sure if this is the place to share that list, but why not?
@Rosa
Sure. Our list is still a “work in progress,” we’re currently at 18, and as we find really good songs, we’ll gradually add them, and like I said, try to keep it around 20-30.
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
Before The Throne of God Above
Come Thou Found of Every Blessing
Everlasting God
God of This City
How Great Is Our God
How Marvelous
I Need Thee Every Hour
I Will Boast
Indescribable
Jesus Paid It All
Mighty To Save
Nothing But the Blood (hymn)
Nothing But the Blood (Redman)
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
To You O Lord (by Graham Kendrick)
You Gave Your Life Away
You Never Let Go
Here’s our list of songs that are currently off the list, but we’re not sure we’re going to retire them yet. I guess you could call it our “B” list.
Alive Forever Amen
All Creatures of our God and King
Blessed Be Your Name
Forever
He Is Exalted
Holy Holy Holy
O Worship the King
One Again
Rescue
When I Survey
As far as the themes… Many of these songs fit with Communion, and we’ve never had a need to pick a “child dedication” song. All that to say, I really haven’t noticed it causing any problems with trying to get a theme to match.
The main thing I would like to encourage everyone to do is BE PICKY. We have thousands and thousands of songs to pick from… almost overwhelming at times… but the advantage is that we can constantly search for music and find outstanding text that matches outstanding music. When I get completion Worship CDs, I print the lyrics out first (so that way the music doesn’t make me think that the words are more profound than they are), I pick the songs that I think have great lyrics and then check the music. On the down side, not many songs make it through the other side… On the up side, the few that do, the church really resonates with.
Anyways… I’ll stop talking.
James thanks for the list. I knew 5 of them in the first list, and 4 in the second. Never heard of the others. I think we are stuck in a time warp.
I’m going to try to find the others somewhere.
Thanks for the words of advice.
Great post.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has come up to me after doing an oldie like “I Exalt Thee” or “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and said how “wonderful” the music time was that day.
Worship leaders. Stick to what works without overdoing it. Find a good balance between bringing new stuff and lingering in the aged.
Personally, I don’t see songs as old, but as aged or experienced…kind of like a fine wine.
Fresh is important, but if you are “experienced” or an old-timer, the fresh songs back in the day, could be fresh today. If someone has never heard the songs that started YOUR worship desire, it will be brand new to them.