Ask the Expert – How many songs does an average church need?

And we’re at the other extreme – I don’t use a song list, but would reckon that over a year we use a total (including repeats) of about 6-700 songs or hymns, and rarely use any one song more than four times. So I guess we have a repertoire of maybe 300 songs and 200 hymns. Because I pick for content first – all the songs for a particular service relate to a core theme, and the mood moves as the congregation journeys through the service. And you just can’t do that with a small repertoire.

Our church usually has theme specific songs we do so are song list is very extensive . We also have a fairly large congregation of 800 plus people so we have several bands that rotate .So we have to keep things fresh and new , we pull out 2 maybe 3 classic praise choruses each week and add 1 or 2 new songs every week or every other week .
The biggest thing is to keep it simple songs with chord changes for every word in the song is torture to a praise band .The songs with 3 or 4 chords make it real easy for all the musicians to actually sing praise and get into the worship experience .
Most importantly make sure God is always the focus not the songs or the music or the style , if everyone on stage is focused on God and serving and praising him then it should all be good .

Does anyone know of a database/resource for finding worship songs by theme?

Over a number of years I’ve definitely come to believe that it’s good to have a core list to work around. I find that there really are only so many songs that a congregation can know well. Just how many songs you have on your core list is very much down to your situation. We would use anywhere between 7 and 15 songs in a service (and I often pick more songs than I need for the response section so that I have a choice). In order to have enough variety but also enable the congregation to get to know the songs I’ve found that I need 150-180 songs on our list. It’s not by any means forbidden to pick songs outside this list but there needs to be a good reason (e.g. theme) and I like to limit people to one song not on the list per service. If you don’t have so many songs in each service it’s certainly possible to operate from a much smaller list.

Whatever the length of list you use I think that it’s important to review it regularly. This means that you’ll be able to add new songs in a planned way rather than the list growing informally and unintentionally. I would also encourage churches to ‘rest’ songs which are in danger of being overused – it’s amazing how effective a good song can be when you haven’t sung it for 3-6 months.

The other advantage of a core list is that all songs can be ‘vetted’ properly. Admittedly, this is more important for some churches than others but it is important that songs are both singable and reflect good theology. How you define either of these will, again, depend on your context but it’s better to think about it beforehand (and have answers ready if necessary) than to come a cropper.

Just a note on introducing songs. I find that too many churches sing a song once (and it doesn’t take off) and then wait a month or longer before singing it again. If you’re really going to measure how successful a song has been you need to choose it two or three times in quick succession so that you can judge how well it works when the congregation have been given a good run at it. As an example, we introduced a song a couple of weeks ago. The first week it was okay but not spectacular, we chose it again the next week and it went down really well. We still need to sing it again to cement the familiarity and it can then be a regular part of our core. Had it not been great the second time I may still have tried it again as some songs take longer to ‘get’ than others.

When I first arrived at my current church it seemed that the congregation half knew a lot of songs and the music collection suggests that many, many songs were sung. After 7 months of using a more restricted list we’re already finding that the singing is better and the church feels more united in worship – a great result.

Where we don’t have much repertoire on our list which immediately ties in with the theme of the service we try to focus on the aspect of God’s character which that theme speaks to. We usually have enough songs on the list to cover that well and sometimes choose one good song or hymn which is more subject specific. As well as keeping some consistency this also helps to avoid ‘theme-itis’ which treats the whole service as a teaching tool rather than an opportunity to come together in worship around the teaching of the word.

We use PlanningCenterOnline.com to organize out song list – which helps when I am looking for a particular theme too. I try to introduce 1-2 new songs each month – we will play it for 2 weeks, take a week off & play it again for 1-2 weeks to see if it really “works” or not. Some songs don’t take right away, but I often find that when we use it a few months later (because it just “fits”) it really works well.

By doing this trial method, we end up with about 7 new songs each year that become part of the big list, about 7 that are on the reserve list, and the rest we may never do again.

We do 4 songs @ the top, 1 song for the kids in the middle, a song for communion & a reprise or chorus at the end of service. The “kids songs” however are not “kid” songs – they are generally more upbeat CCM songs that the Children’s Director has on her list to do.