Continuing The Conversation: The Worship of God at Christ Covenant – Part II: Participatory Singing

We recently had dinner together as a church followed by open discussion in small groups  about new directions for our worship of God at Christ Covenant.  I’d like to continue that a bit in light of what I learned, and to share with those not there.

Participatory Singing

We work deliberately to encourage and enable congregational singing  at Christ Covenant.  That means all of us singing together.  Even – perhaps especially? - those like me, who don’t sing naturally, comfortably or well.


I look around and observe that in the pursuit of excellence, many churches – both contemporary and traditional – allow or even encourage a more concert-like observer role for people in the congregation.  Excellence – giving God our best – is a good thing and there is a time and place for both vocal and instrumental solos.  But at Christ Covenant, we never want to loose, overshadow or minimize the opportunity to gather God’s people in many voices as a single, unified expression of praise and gratitude. 

As a musician myself, it is easy for me to encourage our musicians to pursue real excellence in how we play and arrange the music.  That is our God-given passion and gifting.  I’m just as quick though to aim our hearts in light of the Gospel as we play and sing.  This music is not about us – our pleasure, our acclaim, our ability.  It’s about pointing God’s people to Him in worship.  There is a difference between performance – which, by the way, I thoroughly enjoy! – and leading the worship of God’s people.  At Christ Covenant, the musicians and vocalists exist to lift and empower the congregation to sing God’s praise. 

Because of that, I have some very deliberate commitments that guide me week to week.  I’m careful about the range that we expect people to be able to sing.  That means not too high or too low.  I’m careful about tempos.  That means not so fast that we can hardly get the words out.  Though somewhat intangible, I’m always listening for a good, solid, singable melody and encourage those with a good voice and musical background to fill in with harmonies.  The goal in all this is always to give everyone a comfortable setting to “make a joyful noise unto the LORD” with their voice. 

We choose from a relatively small selection of songs compared with many churches.  That way, when you come on a regular basis you will get to know the songs we sing.  One of the things my musician buddies dislike about playing in churches, is that they are asked to play a song one Sunday and it may be 6 months before they are asked to play it again.  This means they never get to do the song well.  I think lots of singers in the congregation would echo that sentiment.

Finally, we want the songs that we sing to build deep, biblical, Gospel-centered faith.  As a result, we commonly sing older songs – hymns – with new melodies and modern instrumentation.  Imagine Charles Wesley growing up in Nashville, TN.  I’m always looking for musical settings for actual Bible texts as well.  As John Calvin put it: We have no better words to sing than those which the Holy Spirit Himself has given us!”  Even songs that are new or very simple should all convey the truth of Scripture and point the singer to the God of Scripture.

Here’s what I look for in a song for congregational singing: the words of King David, set to verse with the theological integrity of John Calvin sung to a melody by Paul McCartney.  I hope that on the Tuesday following a service you find yourself humming a song that we sang on Sunday.  And that the content of that song points you to Jesus and reminds you of the Gospel right where you are.

The Difference Between Congregational Worship and a Concert – Click Here for an insightful blog post by Justin Taylor.