Make a Joyful Noise: Congregational Singing
Congregational singing has been around since the early days of the church and even before. Through scripture, we are encouraged to come together and sing our praises to God most high. Congregational song is a hugely important facet of our weekly worship times, but can sometimes be cast aside as just something we do before the pastor speaks. As worship pastors and worship leaders, there are many things we can do to encourage, foster, and disciple our congregations through music.
First, we should communicate with our congregations throughout the service. This means we should be thoughtful in describing the acts of adoration, giving, baptism, communion, and so forth. By this, we teach our congregants what we are doing within the act of worship and forming how our congregations worship from week to week.
Another thing we can do as worship pastors is be deliberate in our music selection. We should be picking songs that are not only singable, but theologically correct. We can supplement the teaching of our pastors with sings that deal with the same subject matter. This will reinforce a not only what we believe, but help to keep the teaching in someone’s thoughts. Music is a powerful tool that can communicate on a conscience and subconscience level that we should utilize. On the matter of singability, they need to repeat enough that our congregations can catch on. Songs that are really wordy, while good, can sometimes be stumbling block to encouraging our congregations to sing along. Also, we should try to stay away from songs that have a large range. Songs that are too high or too low could cause the congregation to shut down and be willing to sing along. Songs in the normal middle of someones range will be far easier to sing.
Lastly, in our song selection from week to week, we should try and keep doing familiar songs and repeating new songs. People are formed by repetition. Just as the pastor does a sermon series over God’s faithfulness, we should keep doing the songs we know and introducing new ones with the intent of repeating them. This will help our congregations learn new music as well be reminded of the message of the song.
In the end, we must always be faithful to God’s will. The more time we spend in prayer seeking God’s wisdom, the more in tune we will be with Him and be able to communicate His message to the people.
