What kind of songs do we need in our worship?

To: John Unger
From: Myles Halliday
Subject: Re the new song selection event

John, I like your idea of calling our music leaders together to choose new music for our congregation. If everyone comes prepared, we should be able to find songs that augment our current selection and fill gaps in our repertoire. (You mentioned “robust songs about the Holy Spirit” and “lament songs.” Are there other gap areas?)

We’ll probably need about 2.5 hours of time to do this, at least. Do you know of anyone with a good music setup at home where we could listen?

Thanks.

To: Myles Halliday
From: John Unger
Subject: Choosing songs for our congregation

I’ve delayed my response, Myles, because I wanted to think it over a bit. My comments fall into three categories.

A. Gap areas

As I mentioned earlier, I think we need lament songs as well as strong Holy Spirit songs. To this list I would add, in no particular order:

• Songs of invitation. We need a new “Just As I Am.”
• Mission – responding to Jesus’ command to go into all the world, and, closely related, Sending songs.
• Stewardship. We have quite a few creation songs that focus on praise, but they don’t make it to the next level of our response, that of stewardship.
• Songs that speak of the church as a corporate body. On Sunday someone pointed out that one of our worship songs had 15 references to “I.” Our relationship with Jesus is personal, but it is not private, and in the context of congregational worship, I wish we could balance the personal “I” with the corporate “we.”
• Our files contain a fair number of reflective songs. We need good celebration songs, where we pull all the stops.
• We need good seasonal songs. While there seem to be a fair number of great Good Friday songs, we need songs in contemporary idioms that address the preparatory seasons (Advent and Lent) as well as Christmas, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost.
• We need songs about the Lord’s return.
• Also, songs in which children can get involved in percussion (we have the little instruments) or in singing.

B. Theology

On a more general note, we need songs with theological depth. This hit home last Sunday at Vespers, when we spent the evening singing the songs of Charles Wesley. He was an ordained priest before he began his “career” in music, and the theological training sure shines through. The songs we sang traced the entire story of Jesus, from the prophecies of the Old Testament through His life, death, resurrection, ascension and coming again in glory.

This will make me sound like a disgruntled old man, I fear, but some of our worship songs sound a lot like teenage love poems (I’m longing for you, desperate for you, waiting for your touch, etc.). While it is true that teenage love songs are appropriate for their age, love eventually grows up. Our worship services should not discount the blush of young love when people first fall in love with Jesus, but our services should also model a mature faith, something to move toward and strive for.

C. Music

Beyond that, the songs we choose should be singable: with memorable and varied melody line, some degree of harmonic maturity, rhythmic interest, and in a key range most of us can sing.

This would still allow us to use performance-oriented songs for offertories and special music, so we’re not losing these songs; we just wouldn’t use them for congregational singing.

Thanks for putting this on the agenda. I think we will serve our congregation well as we intentionally work at developing our music repertoire.

As to a suitable day: Let’s aim for some time late in May or in the early part of June.

John Unger is pastor of Fort Garry MB Church, Winnipeg. Myles Halliday is the chair of the congregation’s music committee.