Bob Kauflin on choosing popular worship songs:
If you’re a worship leader or music minister there’s a good chance you’ve heard another leader talking about the new song they just introduced. They describe it as the most “incredible, life-changing, awesome, heaven-releasing, God-calling-down, what-you-haven’t-heard-it-yet” song they’ve ever done. You heart sinks as you realize that not only have you not heard the song, you didn’t even know the CD was out. When you think of the 80 CD’s on your desk you still haven’t listened to, you really feel like a loser. “How can anyone in my church even worship?”
If you’ve ever had those thoughts, you’re not alone. The problem lies mainly in our sinful hearts. We don’t want to be out of the loop when it comes to what’s happening in the worship world. We don’t want to look like we have our heads stuck in the sand. After all, we only have to spend a few minutes on the web to know what’s going on. It’s not like you have to go to a record store…But somehow we fall behind in our new song awareness, and start to panic. That’s our pride showing.
The worship song industry doesn’t always help us. Recently I received this advertisement for a new CD in my in-box:
51 Must Have Modern Worship Hits
Few music collections capture the very best moments of an entire genre of music, but 51 Must Have Modern Worship Hits does just that. Packed with the best of the best songs that have shaped modern worship as we know it, this essential 3-CD set includes…”
I realize that this is simply a company trying to package and promote songs that God seems to have used in the church. I have no doubt there are some great songs being offered. But I think it reveals a flaw in the way many of us think about worship songs. I wanted to draw attention to how the way these songs are described might tempt us as we seek to serve our churches.
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