CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP SONGS HOW TO

A lead guitarist might get excited about inventing a solo for a particular song, or about using a certain pedal effect for it.

For those leaders who are highly skilled musicians - that is, they also play other musical instruments apart from their voices - there is often the tendency to hear a new worship song and decide to introduce it to their congregations simply because something about the music appeals to them on a compositional level. One of the first mistakes that many worship leaders make is that they fail to think like a singer. Instead, I want to offer some practical guidelines and 'rules of thumb' when it comes to selecting songs for a worship set list. Every worship leader also has his or her own style, tastes and strengths. What may work for one service for a given congregation may not work for the next service, and what may work well for one house of worship, may not work for the next. Every church also allots a different amount of time for the musical portion of worship during its services, and so I'm not going to attempt to cover how a worship leader should arrange a song (e.g., repetition of choruses, tagging vocal lines, etc.), nor how many songs he or she should select for each set. I'm also not going to discuss how a worship leader should order a worship set list to make it most logical and fluid, since every church has its own order of service, and many churches alter their order of service or structure from week to week. In this article, I'm not going to suggest a list of specific worship songs or choruses that I believe are most suitable for congregations, since every church has its own style, preferences and needs when it comes to musical worship.

CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP SONGS HOW TO

I've led contemporary Christian worship, both as a regular leader at the largest church in New England and as a guest with my worship band at numerous other houses of worship in both the United States and Canada, and, over these several years of experience, I've learned a great deal about how to discern and assess the potential value of a worship song.

Contemporary christian worship songs