Weighing In on Potential New Songs

Hey Worship Team,

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I would be putting together a page on Planning Center with potential new worship songs. The initial idea came from Gordon, and I thought it was an excellent idea indeed!

We thought it'd be great to get some feedback from you, the worship team member who could potentially be playing one of these "new" songs in the near future. Was the song memorable and catchy? Was it singable? What was your initial impression? This is the kind of feedback I would be looking for.

So, I invite you, encourage you to visit the "new songs" page and let me know what you think. The link to the page is below. You'll need a Planning Center account to access this page - but if you're on the worship team you'll already have one one.

http://www.planningcenteronline.com/plans/1145285

I've set everyone on the worship team up as an "editor" for this page only. This will allow you to leave feedback on the feedback tab. Here's how: If you click on the pencil icon to the right of the song title a box will pop up and you'll see an area called "feedback notes". Here is where you can input your thoughts on the song. Just be careful not to delete anyone else's thoughts!

You are also welcome to post feedback on the new songs in the form of comments to this blog post. Or, if all else fails, just shoot me an email with your thoughts.

You may be wondering what criteria I use when considering new songs to introduce. Here are several considerations (in no particular order):

• Theological Content - what does the song say about God, His character, His redemptive work? Is the song declaring, affirming something about God that calls for a response? Is what the song is saying theologically sound?
• Musicality - does it have a memorable melody? Does the melodic structure fit the lyric or theme?
• Singability - can the average person sing it after hearing it a couple times? Is the melodic pattern easy enough to follow, and is the melodic range (lowest to highest note) within the range of the average person?
• Lyrical Quality - does the song avoid cliches? If the song has a rhyme pattern, are the rhymes solid? Are the metaphors consistent or mixed?
• Singular vs. Plural - are the pronouns in the song personal or corporate? I tend to prefer songs that use the "we/us" language in corporate worship settings.
• Repertoire - when looking at the songs already in our repertoire, does the new song cover a topic that is lacking representation in the repertoire?

I hope you can take a listen to some of the new songs...