14 Ways Pastors Can Improve Congregational Song

By Dr. Barry Liesch

The pastor's responsibility is to oversee, to set the tone and atmosphere, to create the proper attitudes and conditions, and be visibly supportive.

1. Ensure that Sunday morning worship music is linked to life- style worship. God created us to worship Him continuously. Life-style worship, the offering of our entire lives in service to God each and every day, is our life-long calling. Sunday morning worship is the continuation of that calling. Encourage a life of praise and worship.

2. Ensure that God is the primary object of your worship, not the music. God should be primary-not the music performance, style, or instrumentation. In our era, people equate the worship with the music: if the music is good, then the worship is good. We are in danger of becoming too exclusively dependent on music, and too neglectful of other worthy activities such as prayer and Scripture reading. Point out that some songs are actually sung prayers, and that we can pray them directly to our Heavenly Father.

3. Ensure that the people's song gets priority over individual or group performance. Most music directors would subscribe theoretically to the idea that the congregation is the first and most important choir. But if you look where they actually put their energy, you'll find it seldom goes into improving congregational response. Don't be fooled! When we fill up the service with the choir, the special music, or the worship team, to the point that we neglect the congregational response, we are teaching the people to be spectators.

4. Communicate the purposes of congregational song to all. Hymns and choruses express our deepest thoughts to God, link belief to emotions, unite the congregation, express and inspire prayer, teach the fundamental doctrines of the faith, and draw people into the presence of God. State and restate these and other purposes until they take hold in the people.

5. Insist on a variety of musical materials. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" (Col. 3:16, NASB, emphasis added). If the early church had a variety of materials, why should we accept the poverty of only hymns, only choruses? Give your people the opportunity to learn new pieces, even those from different cultures.

6. Nest new hymns and choruses-that is, encourage your worship leaders to work on and continue to review new songs for several weeks in a row until they take hold. Then move on to another cluster of materials. Continuity of this sort is superior to a scattered approach where all hymns are chosen because they fit the theme of the day and then are dropped for months or years. Nesting also aids memorization.

7. Paraphrase weighty hymns and choruses during prayers. Paraphrasing a weighty hymn or chorus in a prayer (just before singing it) is far more vital and much less boring than merely reading the stanzas with the people. Why? The service doesn't stop- worship continues. Meanings can be exposed and embellished using modern language; abstruse language can be clarified and feelings brought out. It's a way to help people drink in the full meaning of weighty texts without being boringly didactic. See chapter seven of The New Worship for examples and the details.

8. Arrange for testimonials. Incorporate a "What this hymn means to me" feature occasionally in your service. Invite someone to share.

9. Share hymn and chorus stories. Hymn stories are valuable motivators, especially for the youth. Buy a copy of Kenneth W. Osbeck's, 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982 or The Worshiping Church: A Hymnal, Worship Leader's Edition (Carol Stream, Ill: Hope Publishing, 1990). Chorus stories are also available in Worship Leader. For maximum intergenerational impact, have the youth share the stories on the hymns, and senior the stories on choruses.

10. Encourage the purchase of hymn and chorus books and CDs for home use.

11. Eliminate wordy, intruding, hymn announcements. Use words sparingly during the song service. Short, road-mapping comments, however, can be helpful. Pastor Paul Anderson says his elders continually encourage him to tell the people what is happening. Paul suggests the following: Take them there, but tell them as they go where they are going. Not a lot of words, just a line to connect two songs together, or a sentence before singing in the Spirit. It can help lift the fog and give people permission to enter.

12. Prepare for spiritual warfare through worship. When we think of spiritual warfare, we think of putting on the armor of God described in Ephesians six, but we often don't connect that to Ephesians 5:18. Put on the armor-cloth yourself with a wise song! Worship plays an important role in preparing our brothers and sisters to live an overcoming life. In worship we arm ourselves with the Word of God embedded in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. These songs "stick" with us during the day and help us overcome temptation. Worship teams and choir members are more than performers. They have an important equipping role.

13. Educate! Motivate! Model Spirituality! Have hymns and choruses nurtured you? Let your people know. Quote them in your sermons.

14. Share Wesley's Rules for Congregational Singing (1770). It's valuable for inspiring response. Project it or print it in your bulletin and read it together. Wesley's Rules are available in chapter seven of The New Worship.

Contributed by Dr. Barry Liesch. For more information see chapter seven of The New Worship, expanded edition.