How do we decide what songs to sing at church?

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. (Colossians 3:16)

  • At all times, and in COVID times even more acutely, our songs are ‘sung creeds’ - ie we are declaring truths about God, from his Word.

  • Our Creeds are all very carefully written, over a long period of time. We would not use a Creed that had any lines that were not completely clear and accurate to Scripture. Similarly, we need to only choose songs that are completely clear and accurate to Scripture.

  • This gets tricky, because they are many wonderful melodically sounding songs, from many different music houses. And we can often end up loving the music, and putting up with weak words.

  • So for every song: our job is to carefully study the lyrics (without music) before we grow to love the music!

    • If a song has weak lyrics, no matter how good it sounds - we can’t sing it.

    • If a song has good lyrics, but is weak melodically - then we’ll probably not sing it, as there are better options. Though obviously everyone’s musical taste is different!

  • There is a place for more ‘devotional songs’ in private listening/singing at home, but in our corporate gatherings, we are encouraging each other by declaring truth about God, so songs should focus on objectively on what God has done for us in the Cross (God’s big story), not our response. A helpful way to check this, is to ask, “If a non Christian friend came to church today, would that song help them understand what Jesus has done for them’ or be confusing. That is not to songs are not a response to God, but that the content of the song is what he has done, not our response.

    • “What if composers of modern praise songs carefully selected lyrics that focus more on God’s character than on our experience? What if we embarked on a campaign to teach believers that worship is more about ascribing worth to God than pursuing an emotional response—that in fact, our emotions will often be stirred in the right ways when we focus more on God and less on ourselves?” (Merker)

    • This does not mean our singing is flat or doesn’t move the heart - because hearing the gospel is what moves our heart to joy and thanksgiving.

  • In addition, there are some good songs that come from churches that teach heresy. Unfortunately, this is the case with Bethel, Elevation and Hillsong. So out of wisdom, we are choosing not to sing these songs. This is certainly not witch-hunting, but taking seriously our responsibility towards God.

    • “The forms of worship we adopt aren’t neutral; they will mould the next generation of worshipers. Let’s never get complacent about where corporate worship is today, but ask God for the wisdom we need to serve him more faithfully in the future.” (Merker)

Articles

  • https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/dont-sing-only-god-church/

  • https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/singing-congregation-contemporary-worship/

  • https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/use-bethel-songs-worship-4-diagnostic-questions/

  • https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-the-bethel-church-movement/