Choosing Worship Songs: Style

All right, now here’s a topic that can get many a worship leader in trouble with their congregation. Choosing a style to present the music is a hot topic in and of itself. Rock, Reggae, Classical, R&B, Gospel, Country or traditional. These are just a few of the styles one can choose from when leading their church in worship. In this post, I’m going to share how I approach this issue.

Style

I have found that as a worship leader, it’s necessary to know that I am in this role to serve the church, not just entertain them. Once I learned and applied this principal, I discovered that I must not simply choose song styles based on my preferences. This is a difficult thing, because simply put, there are some styles that I enjoy more than others and there are some styles that the praise team can tackle better than others.

When people mention a cool worship song they’ve heard and say they’d love to hear our team do it, I quickly run through my mind the style and whether our team can play it at the level of excellence necessary. There are just some songs that we can pull off well and some that just don’t quite work. And that’s ok. Challenge your team to play things that they aren’t used to playing. You may just discover that you can play a little gospel along with your rock.

Now back to the people in the church. You must be willing to take risks in leadership. Serving the people does not mean catering to everyone’s opinion of what worship music should sound like. Refer to my post on “10 Things on Worship Leading“. Sometimes the church body is best served by the worship leader who challenges them to open their ears, eyes and hearts to styles that are relevant in today’s world. There’s a can that I won’t open here labeled “Music styles and instruments that are Biblical” that many folks like to pull out and open from time to time. I typically like to stay away from that since it usually gets you nowhere. Just ask them if they’d prefer you play a Sackbut.

So find the style that best fits your community and from time to time, mix it up. It might even revive a bored worship team.

Ben Abu Saada

Originally posted on Ben’s blog on July 25, 2005 at BabuLife.blogs.com

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http://Www.twitter.com/clscholes Conor

I like the comment about knowing your community. It doesn’t matter how good anything is musically if you are not keenly aware of where your people are at, and how you can educate them. Changing things up every once in a while is great, too! Our people love it when we do acoustic only services…
http://Www.twitter.com/clscholes Conor

I like the comment about knowing your community. It doesn’t matter how good anything is musically if you are not keenly aware of where your people are at, and how you can educate them. Changing things up every once in a while is great, too! Our people love it when we do acoustic only services…
Brian King

I agree, we are not put in our roles to entertain the church, but nobody said you cannot have fun while praising God. That being said, I LOVE mixing it up with different styles. Just heard the concert last week by Israel Houghton where he through out Reggae…It was AWESOME!!! Of course, not all praise bands will be able to tackle each style, but again, as long as Jesus is getting the glory, I say try new things! (Also…Vicky Beeching is one of my wife’s favorite Christian artists. Would love to have that CD for her)
Brian King

I agree, we are not put in our roles to entertain the church, but nobody said you cannot have fun while praising God. That being said, I LOVE mixing it up with different styles. Just heard the concert last week by Israel Houghton where he through out Reggae…It was AWESOME!!! Of course, not all praise bands will be able to tackle each style, but again, as long as Jesus is getting the glory, I say try new things! (Also…Vicky Beeching is one of my wife’s favorite Christian artists. Would love to have that CD for her)
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http://journeyofaworshipper.blogspot.com/ Ryan Rotman

This has been a big and challenging topic in my church. We changed up our services about 2.5 years ago from one traditional service and one contemporary service to two blended services that are the same. Right now we’re doing one service. It was a tough change and a change that some people really didn’t like. However we made our way through it and now our services are a great time of worship. Yes, we lost some people, but we’ve also gained some new folks and the ones that did stay have had their eyes opened to all kinds of different styles. I think the best comment I ever heard after we made the switch, came from one of our older members. They are still with us, but what they said is that even though it’s not their preference, they realize that their generation will soon be gone from the church and that if this new style is what the next generation of church attenders worship with, then they want it to continue, so we can build up the young people that will soon be the main portion of the church. With that comment, it trumped all the nasty emails and comments, and I realize that the leadership of the church made the right decision.

What if I play the version of the sackbut we know today as the trombone?
http://journeyofaworshipper.blogspot.com/ Ryan Rotman

This has been a big and challenging topic in my church. We changed up our services about 2.5 years ago from one traditional service and one contemporary service to two blended services that are the same. Right now we’re doing one service. It was a tough change and a change that some people really didn’t like. However we made our way through it and now our services are a great time of worship. Yes, we lost some people, but we’ve also gained some new folks and the ones that did stay have had their eyes opened to all kinds of different styles. I think the best comment I ever heard after we made the switch, came from one of our older members. They are still with us, but what they said is that even though it’s not their preference, they realize that their generation will soon be gone from the church and that if this new style is what the next generation of church attenders worship with, then they want it to continue, so we can build up the young people that will soon be the main portion of the church. With that comment, it trumped all the nasty emails and comments, and I realize that the leadership of the church made the right decision.

What if I play the version of the sackbut we know today as the trombone?
http://2nihon.com Stephen

I really respect it when the leader and musicians can pull off a total style change. I’m just looking forward to the day when I can get some big band/swing and ska on the stage.
http://2nihon.com Stephen

I really respect it when the leader and musicians can pull off a total style change. I’m just looking forward to the day when I can get some big band/swing and ska on the stage.
http://www.iamanoffering.com Ryan Egan

Thanks for this insightful article.

One thing to think about as well is the question of what style is the most commonly listened to in the congregation. If you think it’s a good idea to keep on pushing for modern pop-rock style worship songs when 90% of your congregation loves bluegrass, I think it would be a much better idea to focus on the bluegrass “language” of the congregation.

Granted, though, if your congregational preferences lie in a large variety of styles it would be wise and necessary to educate everyone on having an appreciation for all styles.
http://www.iamanoffering.com Ryan Egan

Thanks for this insightful article.

One thing to think about as well is the question of what style is the most commonly listened to in the congregation. If you think it’s a good idea to keep on pushing for modern pop-rock style worship songs when 90% of your congregation loves bluegrass, I think it would be a much better idea to focus on the bluegrass “language” of the congregation.

Granted, though, if your congregational preferences lie in a large variety of styles it would be wise and necessary to educate everyone on having an appreciation for all styles.
http://www.esstopeka.org Jodi

I like your point of view. In our church we are more contemporary, but try to mix in a few older songs in order to make everyone happy. However, I believe it’s not about making everyone happy. I think someone is called to be a worship leader for a reason. He/she should be in constant connection w/ God, thus leading worship the way they are called.
http://www.esstopeka.org Jodi

I like your point of view. In our church we are more contemporary, but try to mix in a few older songs in order to make everyone happy. However, I believe it’s not about making everyone happy. I think someone is called to be a worship leader for a reason. He/she should be in constant connection w/ God, thus leading worship the way they are called.
http://www.allaboutworship.com AllAboutWorship

And the winner is…STEPHEN…the fourth comment. Picked using random.org. Congrats, Stephen! Contact us to claim your CDs.
http://www.allaboutworship.com AllAboutWorship

And the winner is…STEPHEN…the fourth comment. Picked using random.org. Congrats, Stephen! Contact us to claim your CDs.

Choosing Worship Songs: Style

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