A church in the suburbs has remodeled a majestic, historic Civil War-era church in downtown Greenville, SC and planted a satellite ministry there. I visited last Sunday and heard something I haven’t heard in a long time: a congregation actually singing.

The place was packed and their worship setup was simple: a male worship leader with acoustic guitar, female backup singer, keyboard and djembe. I’d imagine a full band wouldn’t work so well in the reverberant environment of the old timey rectangular Baptist Church layout with hard floors, plaster walls and stained glass windows. Sitting in the balcony I could hear the musicians fine and could tell the minimal sound system merely supported the natural acoustics.

The same reverberant environment that would make a rocking praise band difficult to tame made for a rich singing environment. The congregation knew the contemporary worship songs and everyone was singing. Loudly.

I can think of another very contemporary church in town where I’ve looked around during the “worship” music and nobody’s singing. Not that you could even hear them singing if they were – because the band is so loud.

Like I’ve said before, your music doesn’t necessarily grow your church, it helps define who comes to your church. The historic church attracts a young, hip crowd who probably went to a Caedmon’s Call concert the night before. The rocking church attracts a young, hip crowd who probably went to a Linkin Park concert the night before.

But whatever style your church, your congregation should be singing (even if your band is loud.) If they’re not, maybe these reasons will help you discover why:

1. The key is too high. Tenor worship leaders tend to sing worship songs in the key best suited for their voice, and that’s usually not a singable key for a plumber in the crowd. Don’t feel you must do that Chris Tomlin song in the same key he uses – your tenor worship leader will still sound fine a step or three lower and everyone else will then be able to participate.

2. They don’t know the songs. As worship leaders we know the worship songs, sing them once or twice and tire of them quickly. We also forget the average person is completely musically illiterate. At a church where I worked as pianist many years ago we wondered why people weren’t singing. When we looked at our song list we had about 100 praise songs and 100 hymns in rotation. If we sang four songs each week we’d end up singing each song on the list about once a year. Pare down your song list to something manageable and learnable.

3. They don’t like the style. I was talking about this topic once in one of my worship classes and a man asked the question “I’m doing all the top praise songs so why is my congregation not singing?” He had the typical electric guitar driven pop praise band.

I asked him “What would you say is the favorite music style of the average person in your congregation?”

“Bluegrass” he answered.

A Bluegrass loving congregation isn’t really going to get into the latest Lincoln Brewster tune. But they might like the same tune in an acoustic style with a little mandolin or fiddle thrown in. Worship leaders, don’t try to make your congregation like the music you think they should like – get a sense of who they are and tailor your worship experience to them.

This week: plant a few spies in your congregation this Sunday and ask them to report back whether people are singing or not.

One way to help hymns flow more smoothly in modern worship is to update the archaic language. This might be a touchy subject, depending on your church, as traditionalists tend to place hymn lyrics almost on par with Scripture.

In reality, you wouldn’t believe how hymn lyrics are twisted from hymnal to hymnal. As I began the HymnCharts.com website and started researching hymn lyrics for my arrangements, I was surprised to find that a hymn might have several different lyric versions as it floats from denomination to denomination. I use Word’s Celebration Hymnal as my hymn lyrics standard.

Try an experiment: take your favorite hymn and modernize it by changing all the archaic words. Substitute “You” for “Thee,” “Thou” and “Ye.” Leave off the “st” – “canst,” “shouldst” and “wouldst” will now be “can,” “should” and “would.” Change anything else that sounds like it came from your old English teacher.

This can be tricky – it won’t work if the archaic word is part of the rhyme scheme.

I was at a big-time worship conference some time ago where they incorporated “My Jesus I Love Thee” into the praise set. Here’s how their version went:

My Jesus, I love You, I know You are mine,
For You all the follies of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior are Thou: (OUCH!)
If ever I loved You, my Jesus, ’tis now.

Uh oh, they should have known better. I ain’t no English major, but I don’t think you’re supposed to mix King James English with the modern vernacular. In this case I’d leave the hymn alone.

Take a look at “Lead Me to Calvary.” I wrote this new melody for the traditional hymn text back in 2002 and for years left the lyrics as is because an archaic word was part of the rhyme scheme.

But when I revisited it this year I decided the old time words just did not work, especially in a very contemporary church like Brookwood. So I decided to re-write the line that contained the archaic word in the rhyme scheme.

Here are the original lyrics:

verse 1
King of my life, I crown Thee now,
Thine shall the glory be;
Lest I forget Thy thorny brow,
Lead me to Calvary.

chorus:
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Thine agony;
Lest I forget, O Lord, Thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.

verse 2
Show me the tomb where Thou wast laid,
Tenderly mourned and wept;
Angels in robes of light arrayed
Guarded Thee whilst Thou slept.

verse 3
May I be willing, Lord, to bear
Daily my cross for Thee;
Even Thy cup of grief to share,
Thou hast borne all for me.

Here’s the modernized version with the rewritten line in bold:

verse 1
King of my life, I crown You now,
Yours will the glory be;
Lest I forget Your thorny crown,
Lead me to Calvary.

chorus:
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Your agony;
Lest I forget, O Lord, Your love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.

verse 2
Show me the tomb where You were laid,
Tenderly mourned and wept;
Angels in robes of light arrayed
Guarded You while You slept.

verse 3
May I be willing, Lord, to bear
Daily my cross for You;
Even Your cup of grief to share,
Give me a heart renewed.

The hymn retains the same meaning, yet is much more singable without the “wast” and other tongue-twisting words.

What hymn can you modernize for your worship this week?

I was talking to a music director about chord charts. He mentioned how his bass player was playing from some kind of bass guitar hymnal supplement. I remember those from years ago when I used hymnal orchestrations. Some orchestration hymnal editions actually have a specific book for bass guitar that has notes. When was the last time you had a bass player who reads notes?

Some churches are still using complex, pages-long rhythm charts. A drummer friend of mine was telling me about a Texas megachurch where he used to play. He’d cringe when they’d regularly hand out 8 page charts – the page turns killed him.

At a recent megachurch visit I noticed each player in their band had a mammoth music stand with lights – complete with those add-on thingies that further extend the stand, which, of course, holds those 8 page charts. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather have a praise band look more like a real band as much as possible, and less like the Tonight Show studio band. I’d prefer a praise band to be free, singing along and moving (worshipping, even!) – not glued to their music stand.

Ginormous rhythm charts are fine for the occasional complex tune (for instance, more elaborate pieces like my Resurrection Overture and Christmas Concerto) but they’re unnecessary for 95% of the praise songs and contemporary hymn arrangements in the current contemporary worship repertoire.

A good praise song chord chart is on 1 page… 2 pages in a few cases. You only really need to notate the “meat” of the song – the intro, midtros, a verse, a chorus, maybe a bridge. Then, once these parts are learned, they can be easily referred to when the worship leader spontaneously decides to repeat a chorus or verse.

Many church pianists need the notes and pages, but that’s another article on improvisation.

If your band suffers from note-itis, it’s time to start weaning them away from the pages and into chord charts. Start them off easy. If they’re used to lengthy lead sheets, try substituting a simple chord chart for just one song, preferably one they already know. Rinse and repeat. Before long your band will be avoiding problematic page turns and preserving wood pulp to boot.