By traveling and singing in a variety of different churches and congregations, I have learned to be mindful of who your audience is when picking songs. Simply knowing your audience is so powerful in being effective in engaging the entire church in worship! Whether you are a guest in someone else's church or your leading worship in your own church, you must know your audience!
What does knowing your audience mean? It means inquire about or pay attention to the age range in the congregation. First, this means your songs can't all come from one era of music because you have multiple generations that need to be engaged. Something I like to do is listen to the newer songs, figure out their meaning, then find an older song that has that same meaning. For example, in a praise and worship set I chose Fill My Cup and Fill Me Up. Fill My Cup is an older song that the older generation could identify with. The song was a part of their worship in the past and a song they can take ownership of. Fill Me Up is a newer song that has become very popular and is able to reach the younger generations. Using those two songs bridged the gap between the two generations. It showed that the no matter how the message is packaged, it is still the same.
Second, you have to know what style of songs your church responds to. Do they respond well to CCM songs like Oceans (Where feet may fail)? Or do they respond well to "Churchy" songs like God is Great (Leap!)? If you know the church you're visiting or your home church does not respond well to CCM songs, don't pick them for your sets. If you know they won't respond well to "Churchy" songs, then don't pick them! You must figure out what will engage the people into corporate worship. It is not entirely about what songs you like or what songs you've seen go well in other services, it is about meeting the needs of the congregation you've been entrusted to lead. It is about the congregation being able to engage in worship, not just sit back and watch you.
Lastly, if you want to introduce a new style of music to the church you were invited to or your home church, sometimes being intentional on your song/music arrangements can aide in that. Let's take How Great is Our God for example. This has become a staple song in the black church and if you didn't know any better you'd think it was a gospel song. But it isn't! It's a originally a CCM song that we took and made unique arrangements to. Same is true with Break Every Chain and Fill Me Up. Those aren't gospel songs! Those are CCM songs that were rearranged. The music was changed to be more intricate and some of the verses were taken out. Those changes made those songs become more relatable to the black church, and many don't even know the song's origins. So be creative! Don't limit yourself to only one style of music. Listen to different styles of music. If they aren't something the congregation would respond well to because of the words or the music, figure out how to rearrange it to fit your congregation!
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