![]() ![]() If churches can’t agree on important things, then how on earth do we expect to on issues as generationally and culturally divisive as aesthetics, taste and personal devotional style? The fact is, it’s impossible to get right. And I have started muttering passages from Job under my breath as, for the nineteenth consecutive week we’ve sung a song that felt old when it first dropped in the 90s. ![]() I have hummed awkwardly along, certain that the whole worship band, everyone singing around me and all the saints in heaven are watching my poor attempt at lip-syncing the latest Daigle banger. I’ve been both kinds of congregant because I have been to both types of church. Or, for a different kind of congregant: do we have to be singing the same blessed songs every blessed week? Do we need to be learning a new blessed song every blessed week? ![]() So the answer might be to reduce the number of new songs, but it may equally be to lower expectations on volunteer worship leaders who are doing their best.īut what about us? It’s all very well asking the leaders, but we, the congregants, members, attendees and righteous brethren are the ones who have to sing these songs. There are a few ways we could read that, but the most obvious is that big churches with more staff and more resources (or who may even financially support their worship leaders) create environments where this particular pressure is less stressful. In those churches, 35.7 per cent of worship leaders said they could handle even more new songs. While I feel for the worship leaders who responded to the survey, it’s worth keeping in mind that those from churches with more than 2,000 members were far less likely to want fewer new songs to choose from. But does that mean, as some have suggested, that we need a Year of Jubileaders, where worship leaders don’t have to think about the latest new song and can focus on sifting through the approximately 900 billion songs already out there? Do we need a moratorium on new songs being released, like a ban for a full year to let us all catch up? So when you add an endless supply of new songs to vet, it’s got to feel like a lot. Equally important is remembering you’re there to lead other, less musically talented people in sung worship and the resultant restraint needed not to vogue vocally or sing harmony while you’re on lead mic while everyone else becomes your backing singers (please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t do this, some of us are following you and if we get too confused, we cry). There’s the pressure not to be insufferable (which is a temptation for anyone on stage) by demanding the church smile, raise hands or do a small prophetic dance during worship. There’s the usual pressure to play and sing well while simultaneously focusing on the Lord. ![]() It’ hard enough to be a worship leader these days. Some of them, faced with recommendations from peers, requests from congregations and targeted ads from the Big 4 worship houses, may feel the pressure to learn and teach new songs to be overwhelming. The self-consciously righteous answer is, of course, ‘No!’īut when a massive, billion-dollar industry has arisen around the writing, producing and publishing of worship music, and when some churches have grown worryingly large and powerful because of their worship exports, perhaps we can have some sympathy for worship leaders. But the basic question many people are asking is: are too many worship songs being written? There seems, for example, to be no scientific data relating to how many times the human body can repeat phrases like “your glory” disconnected from any meaningful reason to do so before going into catastrophic organ (or rhythm section) failure. The reasons are complex and so we are left to surmise why so many are feeling New Chorus Fatigue. A new study by Worship Leader Research has found that 44 per cent of worship leaders want fewer new songs to consider for their churches. Summer reading guide: 18 books to add to your list.Freedom in Christ founder Neil T Anderson on spiritual warfare, mental health and the end times.Wes Streeting MP: ‘My faith made it very difficult to accept my sexuality’. ![]()
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