How simple must a worship song be to be valuable in a congregational worship setting?
I'm not going to lie, I've argued for simplicity in congregational worship settings in the past as a valuable evaluation tool for whether a song should be chosen for a Sunday morning.
But, I've sensed a shift recently in what the Church is looking for in worship songs.
They want depth.
And worship leaders are afraid of depth because depth is scary.
It's easier to swim in the shallow waters of "desire/fire" rhymes than it is to tread water in the open sea of "Come what may in the space between all the things unseen and His reckoning."
It's safer to stand on the shores of gratuitous "Woaaahhhhs!" than it is to jump the waves of "As You speak, a hundred billion galaxies are born. In the vapor of Your breath the planets form."
But time and time again (and the "worship song charts" are beginning to show this to be true), people are starting to prefer depth. And maybe they always have but we've just ignored it because the Church has been too afraid to write songs that cause people to think.
Anecdotally, I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me if we could sing (insert song with deep lyrics here) on a Sunday morning. And I've politely smiled and nodded and said, "That's a good song! I'll consider it," knowing full well that I have no intentions of doing it because it's probably "not right" for a congregational setting.
We can choose to ignore the hunger for depth in worship and continue to feed our church Enfamil worship songs OR we can start to throw in some T-Bone steak worship songs every now and then.
Do it with caution of course! As with anything, balance is important.
There are people in your church who still need formula. But, I suspect that there are more people in your church than you realize that are looking for prime rib... or at the very least a hot dog or something.
So, worship leader, don't be afraid of wordy worship that causes your church to think on a deeper level.
Introduce it slowly. Pay attention to how your church reacts.
I'd love to hear where you stand on this issue? Let us know BELOW!
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