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How to plan music for a service (Part 4 Final: Step-by-step song selection)

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So, this is part 4.  Do you need to read parts 1-3 before actually choosing the songs for a service?

No, I suppose.  Every generation makes a contribution.

But I think we make an infinitely more valuable contribution if we humbly stand on the shoulders of those who’ve come before us.  It helps us to see what we’re trying to do.

In fact, try asking yourself that very question: what exactly ARE you trying to do when you pick songs for church?  Common responses:

  • Satisfy congregational music preferences?
  • Satisfy your own music preferences?
  • Connect with people emotionally?
  • Re-state the Bible text for the sermon musically?
  • Maintain the particular musical characteristics of your church?

I think each of these are actually valid: if a congregation’s preferences are ignored, they won’t enjoy it; your preferences are often as good a benchmark as anyone else’s; songs that are not emotionally connecting might as well just be spoken rather than sung; restating scripture musically opens it to a new fresh hearing; a church that changes its traditions continually and suddenly will run the risk of losing its congregation.

In parts 1-3 however, I have tried to demonstrate that singing in church is an activity for which we can draw a great deal of wise guidance both from history and from the Bible itself.

In part 1, I suggested that music is the new liturgy.  That is, in place of the formal prayers, readings and other liturgical content of the prayer book services of the past, we have inserted songs.  Often up to a third or even half a service can be singing.  So the big question is: does our music feed our people with a weekly diet of gospel re-expression the way the old liturgies used to?

In part 2, from some of the basic ideas of the old liturgy, I outlined a 4-part service structure into which we can slot our song choices to try to achieve some of the things we might otherwise lose:

1. Approaching – is the part of the service in which we draw near to God in faith and confidence on the basis of the gospel.  As such, it is a time for spelling out in no uncertain terms what the gospel is, particularly if the teaching on that day is not expected to cover it explicitly.

2. Hearing – is the part of the service in which we hear and reflect on a part of God’s word, and where it is expounded for us.  You don’t actually need to sing at this point, unless you have something to reinforce the text.

3. Responding – is the part of the service in which the congregation specifically responds to the word that has been heard.

3. Sending – is the part of the service in which the people of God prepare to return into the world in which we are witnesses for Christ.  So songs that challenge us to have an outward focus are suitable.

In part 3, we turned to the Bible, and saw how we are exhorted to a particular approach to singing in Colossians 3:16 – that of a 3-way conversation between God, you, and the rest of the gathering around you.  God is the initiator of that conversation, and we need to make sure we are willing and enthusiastic listeners, as well as those who re-express his word enthusiastically to each other.

So that’s a summary of parts 1-3… maybe you don’t need to read them after all!

But what difference does this context make?  Is it really that significant?

Well, if I’m honest, I think we’re often up against pride in this discussion.  I remember many, many occasions when I have sat in a dreamy state at my keyboard and imagined the perfect musical moments in church.  Perhaps this is what has taken me into music ministry… I have imagined a passionate congregation singing vibrantly, completely unashamed to lift their voices and their eyes to heaven and belt out a deafening chorus of praise.

I’ve tried to imagine writing the songs that would lead to that kind of spiritual and emotional engagement… I’ve seen myself as the leader of that moment of devotion… the selector of the songs, and then the model of music ministry that people would want to flock to in order experience the same things.

I think a lot of people involved in music ministry have this sense of what it could be.  We think it’s worth the effort, not only because Christ is honoured, but also because people are switched on to him, they are empowered for Christian living, and they are an extraordinarily powerful witness of the realness of faith to any in the gathering who are not Christians.

But nearly 25 years of involvement in music ministry has taught me that I’m not the answer to this.  And I don’t mean to be irreverent, but I have also learned that… it’s not my problem.

It’s certainly my concern, it’s my plea and challenge to the congregations I’m involved with, my area of faithful service, and of course, my prayer, in the same way that it’s my concern that many of my friends do not know Christ.  But God himself is the one whose Spirit needs to work to bring this result.

I believe strongly that my responsibility is to be faithful. For me to be fruitful is God’s responsibility.

This is liberating.  It means that my priority is not pleasing people, impressing people, persuading people, even impacting them emotionally through my song choices.  My priority is faithfulness to God’s word and his people.  But please note: I’m not saying that faithfulness doesn’t involve appropriate persuasion and emotional challenge.

So, I believe that following the patterns of the Bible and the history of the church are essential to my ministry in the present.  They are the vehicles used by God for his work amongst his people.  And be sure of this, his Spirit WILL bear fruit.  People who are exposed to the properly and faithfully expressed gospel WILL respond in joyful, passionate worship.  Not all of them, of course.

Ok, so having laid a detailed foundation, here is the process I use:

1. Read the passage that will be preached on – I’m assuming a model of Bible expounding in which the preachers will attempt to say nothing more or less than what they believe God is saying through a passage.  The passage won’t be used as a springboard for what the preacher thinks is the more important issue of the day.  I’m also assuming that the preacher will adequately put the passage into the context of the unfolding revelation of the whole Bible.

2. Identify the main point of the passage – i.e. finish the sentence, “This passage is saying that …” or “This passage is about …”  It involves considering the context of the section of the Bible.  Some examples:

  • Gen 22 (Abraham being challenged to sacrifice Isaac): “This passage is saying that God commended Abraham for his supreme act of faith”
  • Mark 4 (Parable of the sower): “This passage is saying that there is a variety of responses as people hear the word of God”
  • Eph 6 (Armour of God): “This passage is saying that the elements of the Gospel itself are the means God uses to help people to persevere.”

3. Identify the main application of the passage – i.e. finish the sentence, “This passage is telling us …”  This involves moving from the specific context of the Bible passage to life today and the circumstances of our people.  Some examples:

  • Gen 22 (Abraham): “This passage is telling us to have faith that God will fulfil his promises”.
  • Mark 4 (Sower): “This passage is telling us to be aware of the things that may make us fail to hear God properly”
  • Eph 6 (Armour): “This passage is telling us to remember the key elements of the gospel when we feel under attack”.

4. Identify phrases that a congregation could say in response to this main application – i.e. finish this sentence, “The congregation could respond to this by saying …”.  Examples:

  • Gen 22: “Your promises are trustworthy” or “You will always achieve your purposes” or “Lord, I will put my faith in you”.
  • Mark 4: “Thank you Lord for speaking to us” or “Help us to hear you clearly” or “Lord I turn away from idols and distractions”.
  • Eph 6: “Thank you for saving us and protecting us” or “We rejoice in our righteousness, our salvation, the truth that saves us, and the word that has power”.

5. Identify a “response song” that says a similar thing to these phrases – i.e. get to know all your song lyrics well!  Titles of songs are sometimes a helpful clue, but not always.  Here are some thoughts about a few well known songs:

  • The song “Indescribable” is saying, “Your creation shows us that you are amazing”.  It does use the word “indescribable” in the chorus, but that’s only part of the picture of the song.
  • The song “Blessed be your name” is saying, “Even when times are tough, the Lord is worthy of praise”.  That is, it’s not necessarily a happy song, but it is a song that points us to God even when we’re not happy.  It is about the Lord’s name being special, but particularly about how this is true regardless of our circumstances.
  • The song “Mighty to save” is saying, “We need salvation and God is totally up to the task”.
  • The song “In Christ alone” actually is saying exactly what its title suggests.  This little phrase comes up surprisingly often for me as a phrase of response.

Please note, I’ve only listed these songs because they’re well known on just about every corner of the planet.  In my experience, there needs to be a fair amount of topical breadth in my repertoire to choose response songs well.  You may find it difficult to find the perfect song every Sunday that puts into the mouths of the congregation the response that a specific part of God’s word is calling for.  But it’s worth spending time on this.  When you do find that right song, it can be a powerful moment of the Holy Spirit at work.  People will be given EMOTIVE, CORPORATE VOICE in their response to the word of God.

6. Identify a “sending song” that helps people to take the gospel out the door – i.e. develop a group of songs relating to “out-the-door” type topics, such as:

  • Evangelism and mission
  • Implications of the gospel for holy Christian living
  • Hope of the Lord’s return, and readiness

I think sending songs should instil confidence, have a positive tone, and leave people with a song ringing in their ears.  Some songs that I find work well for sending (as long as you don’t use them all the time!):

  • I cannot tell
  • See him coming
  • Song for the nations
  • Let your kingdom come
  • Live for the kingdom
  • Be thou my vision
  • Stand up, stand up for Jesus
  • O the mercy of God
  • Living for your glory

7. Considering the theme of the Bible passage (and appropriate response), choose “Approaching songs” that pick up any core gospel ideas not yet expressed in the songs you’ve chosen.  Please note, I believe that our music should always tell the gospel in the same way that our liturgy used to in days gone by.  Every Sunday we need to proclaim the basic message of God reaching out to sinners through Christ, declaring them righteous through his blood, and raising them up with the resurrected Christ to bring eternal reconciliation.  This is the message that makes us the church.  And yet it will often not be specifically covered by the sermon, even if the preacher is competent and faithful.

This is why I choose “Approaching songs” last.  If the response to the message is best conveyed through a song like “In Christ Alone”, then the gospel is thoroughly covered in that selection.  But if the response is to devote ourselves to serving Christ, then the gospel has not necessarily been expounded.  We must not assume that people can manage without this weekly repeating of the gospel message, using the array of songs available to us.

8. Organise Approaching songs around a “theologic” – ok I made this word up.  But it simply means trying to use gospel logic.  The structure of the song list can then be part of the teaching provided by our music ministry.  Some examples:

  • We are only forgiven if we repent of our sins; we repent because we know we cannot face God unrepentant.  The logic in this can be spelled out as follows: 1. God is holy; 2. Sinners must repent (or confess sin) before him; 3. God forgives through the gospel.  So you could choose songs that allow you to tell that story to the congregation.
  • 1. God’s word created the universe; 2. God’s word (Christ) also redeemed the universe; 3. God’s word therefore gives us hope for the future
  • 1. God is revealed through creation as mighty, glorious; 2. God is revealed through the gospel as also being merciful, faithful, righteous, holy and wise.

Use creativity!  But always within the context of being faithful to the message.  It might be a good idea to run some of these ideas past your pastor and get some input as to how we can tell the gospel story through our song choices.

9. Provide rationales – if you’re going to put this work into song choice, you might as well let people know what is behind your choices.  In particular, if a person other than yourself is going to introduce them (e.g. a song leader, a service leader or a preacher) then let them know why you’ve picked the songs you’ve picked.  Our church uses an online service planning tool so that everyone involved in planning and running the service can see the same document.  It has a “description” field, where I try to put these rationales.  They then get seen by everyone, and picked up as appropriate in the running of the service.

Thanks for reading… this is a pretty detailed process.  I’m sure there are shortcuts.  And of course there are other ways of doing it.  However you approach this, remember that singing is a ministry of the word and Spirit of God.  Let’s pray that our song choices make the most of the opportunity to share God’s gospel with his people.

 

How to plan music for a service (Part 1 – The new liturgy)

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I’m yet to work out how many parts this post will have.  Planning music for services is such an important topic for churches today, and my own thinking is constantly evolving.  What I do know is that I need to start with some background.

The thing I want to say today is that music is the new liturgy.  And to show you what I mean, let me briefly tell a bit of historical background.

I’m from the Anglican tradition, which traces its roots back to the English Reformation in the 1500s.  Aside from the fact that prior to the Reformation, your local English parish church had the Catholic mass said entirely in Latin, additionally the services and the ministry had theological problems that the reformers needed to address.  Basically, the people weren’t being taught Biblical truths on a Sunday, and they couldn’t understand it anyway, because it was in a language that the average person didn’t know.

So Archbishop Cranmer’s strategy was to implement the English Prayer Book.  The best known of these was the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which although introduced long after Cranmer’s death, was substantially based on the prayer books instituted by Cranmer in the mid 1500s.  The advantage of implementing a prayer book was that it didn’t matter how bad the preacher was, people would still hear the gospel every Sunday.

The prayer book gave intelligible, memorable, Biblically-rich, personally engaging content to every single church service.  To many people today, prayer book services can seem anything but engaging.  But at the time, this was truly revolutionary.

There were two aspects of Cranmer’s prayer books that made a great impact:

  1. A gospel logic with lots of Bible content
  2. Congregational participation

1. A gospel logic –  The communion services are a great example of what I mean.  The services would begin with prayers and readings reminding the people of their need to repent of sin.  This would then lead to a general confession of sin, followed by words of assurance of salvation, drawn from the Scriptures.  This would lead into words of thanks and praise, and then to the communion itself.  The point is, through using the prayer book regularly, the people would have that logic of God’s holiness requiring people to repent, followed by God’s forgiveness, leading to the people’s thanks and praise.  You would learn these truths if you went to prayer book services frequently.

2. Congregational participation – It helped that the services were in English.  But it also helped that there were large swathes of the service that the people said with their own mouths.  It didn’t matter if they couldn’t read, because you would learn them off by heart by joining in with the congregation around you.  So throughout your daily work and family life, you would have the words of the gospel ringing in your ears because you knew the prayers and verses off by heart.

Perhaps just as significant as saying the creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and numerous other Biblically rich prayers and readings, there were the physical actions that went along with the various sections of the service that would reinforce them.  The people said confessions on their knees, they would often stand for words of praise, and of course they would receive the elements of communion by standing up, walking to the front, reaching out their hands and consuming the bread and wine with their mouths.  People were physically acting out their response to the gospel.

There is much about this historical tradition that was a powerful testimony to the gospel in the lives of the regular gatherings of God’s people.  People came to know God through the prayer books, even if the preacher was dull or theologically suspect.

However, in the modern church, we’ve thrown out the prayer book.

There are a number of reasons why this was a good move: today’s church prefers informality, a post-Christian society needs to build bridges rather than erect barriers for the outsider, etc.

But we have lost a great deal.  And not only should we consider what we’ve lost by removing that regular, Biblically-rich, congregationally-oriented service content, we need to consider what we’ve replaced it with… singing.  Lots of singing.

So my question is simple: Is the singing in your church up to the task of replacing what we once had with the prayer book?

Yes, singing is congregational… yes, it’s memorable and personally engaging.  But is it Biblically rich, capturing the glory of God, the depravity of sin and the wonder of the gospel?  Is it Biblically balanced, not only telling God how much we love him, but also reflecting the breadth of topics in the Bible, ranging from God’s righteous wrath and judgement, his holiness, wisdom and love right through to the bountiful provisions of God to human kind, especially in giving us the revelation of his Son and of his work for us on the cross and in the resurrection?

Plumbing the depth and surveying the breadth of the Bible in our services is one of the great challenges of planning music.  It is a task often given to those in the congregation with musical skills.  But the selection of songs must also have the input of those in the congregation with deep Biblical insight.

Think of the opportunity to minister to the congregation like the prayer book would have ministered in days of old.  Regardless of the preacher or the service leader, the singing can deeply implant the things of God in our hearts and minds, giving people tunes and lyrics to sing for their whole life, and in the gathering itself to lift each other’s spirits continually by singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God.

Yes I think music can fill these shoes.  But I want to encourage both musical and pastoral leaders to rise to the challenge.  Music that is faithful to the Bible doesn’t have to be boring or complex.  After all, there’s nothing boring or complex about the gospel.