How to Know if Your Songs Are Ready for Church

It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Considering the moment where you’ll sing a song you or your team has written on Sunday morning. In front of your church. For real people. Your song.

I know the feeling. It’s easy to gloss over the idea of leading an original song and just stick with what is popular; what is working.

But why not the songs of your team? What is holding you back?

Now I’ll be honest. Just because you wrote a song doesn’t make it a good one, or a helpful song for your church.

There are plenty of songs I’ve written that no person should ever have to sing. Thank you, Jesus, for sparing your precious people from some of those early songs.

There’s not enough time to sing bad songs. God is too glorious and His Word is too precious to waste our gatherings on the wrong songs. We can do better.

But you’ll never know until you try. Until you overcome the self-doubt that can sabotage a beautiful gift to the church. So I’m not encouraging you to sing anything simply because it’s original. This is a call for all of us to step up our songwriting process, to write the best songs we are capable of.

I know I never would have introduced an original song to my church if I wasn’t encouraged to. Someone believed in me and challenged me to step out.

So consider this a challenge. Make a commitment to lead an original song within the next 3-4 months in your worship gatherings (more on that challenge at the end of this post).

But before you do, walk through these 5 filters to determine if your song is ready.

5 Ways to Determine if Your Song is Ready

Here’s how you know your song is ready:

1.You’ve Gotten Positive Feedback – That’s what many songs are lacking – any sort of feedback. It’s a shame if a song is introduced without any theological feedback from a pastor, any melodic feedback from a singer, or even thoughts from other songwriters and your team itself. Before a song makes a set, seek out feedback from at least a dozen sources first.

2. It’s Been Tested – Before you add a song to your service, you need to test it. There’s no better insight into a song’s effectiveness than everyday people in your congregation. If people don’t sing it, change the melody. Simplify the phrasing. Cut away the lyrics. The first time you test your song shouldn’t be in a main worship set. Test it in a small group. Sing it with your team. When you lead worship for staff prayer, sing it there. Find those settings where there’s less at stake and see how it lands.

3. The Song is About One Idea – If your song has a single theme, you’re on the right track. It’s probably closer to “ready” than you think. The songs that impact the heart are focused, every verse, chorus, and bridge supporting one idea. You can’t expect engagement if a song is about the ocean of God’s river, the mountain of his love, missions, protecting the environment, animal rescue, & surrender. It’s unhelpful and confusing. Focus.

4. The Theology is Sound & Singable – This is more important than you may realize. The lyrics we sing affect our hearts deeply. A monster melody with lazy lyrics isn’t helpful. But neither is cramming a theological dissertation into 17 verses. This is where you should spend most of your time writing, tweaking, and rewriting. Fight for the lyrics that light your heart on fire. Labor until every section of the song is a “heck yes” in your mind.

5. There’s Alignment With What Your Pastor is Preaching – Wondering what to write about? Start with your church’s sermon series. Weekly sermons are the easiest way to align with the vision of your Church. It’s what your Pastor is hearing from God. It’s what God is calling people to step into. You’ll find your songs are more ready and more applicable when they reflect the vision of your local church.

Immerse yourself in Jesus. Love your people. Pray for your church. Lift up your pastor. Share the Gospel often. These are ways you will keep your heart inspired to write, not just for the sake of writing, but for the sake of the Kingdom of God in your city.

A Songwriting Challenge

Matter of fact, let’s do a little challenge. I challenge you to introduce a new song to your church within the next 3-4 months.

Here are the ground rules:

• It must be a new song that you haven’t introduced before.
• It must be 100% original (obviously). Co-writes are encouraged.
• The song must be taken through the above, 5-step process.
• Leave a comment below letting us know that you’re in (for accountability), and what your greatest challenge is when writing songs for church.

Let’s do this. If enough people respond, I’ll create a forum for song sharing and feedback.

We all look forward to what God is stirring in you.

 

[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]