7 Tips For Creating A Singing Culture At Your Church

One of the things I really enjoy about New City Church is our culture of singing. Which means simply this; our people sing during worship. I'm not saying everyone sings or that we are the best at it (we certainly are not), but I do think we have done a few things to help create an environment of singing.

So for what is worth, I'd thought I'd share seven things that we do in the hopes that it might help you or your church. Below are seven tips for creating a singing culture at your church.

1) Our band members are genuine in how they lead us

Whether we are conscious of it or not, the attitude of those leading the congregation impacts the congregation. God us blessed us with people who love Jesus as much as they love playing music. Those on stage aren't faking it.

You've got to be honest about the attitudes of those leading worship or playing in the band and be willing to address issues as they come up. It is easy to be lead by people you know are sincere, and I think that is a big reason why people sing well at New City.

2) We limit the number of songs in our rotation

We have about 30-40 songs in our "song bank" at all times. That means that we only have a set number of songs that we pull from each week. When we want to add a new song, we take a different song away. In my experience, most people want to sing about the goodness of God and the impact he has had on their life, but if they aren't familiar with the songs they can't sing them.

If you are a ministry leader, your job is to help lead people in the direction you want the church to go. If you want a better singing culture in your church, it could just be because people aren't familiar with enough of them to sing. And remember, most people don't come to church every week. Many don't even come every other week. So if you want people to sing, you have to limit the number of songs you sing so that people can learn them.

3) Programmatic worship hinders singing worship

We should plan our worship sets well, practice well, and ensure transitions and everything in the service goes as smoothly as it can. That being said, authenticity is a high value in our culture today. If worship sets come across as too polished and programmatic, people simply won't like it.

One way to combat the feeling of programmatic worship is to make sure point #1 is true of your band; that they are genuine in how they lead. Lights, smooth transitions, and quality musicianship are all good things that help focus people in worship, but remember that we aren't putting on a concert, we are leading people into worship.

4) Pick songs that have easy melodies to sing

Just like with point #2, part of the reason your church may not have the singing culture you wish is because your church is making it hard for people to sing. Picking songs that are difficult to sing will make it less likely for people to sing, especially if they have to really focus on singing the song correctly.

Remember, public singing is not something Western culture does much of anymore. Our job therefore is to make it as easy as possible for people to sing because public singing is something foreign to a lot of people, especially for people who are new to church.

5) Pick songs that go well with the sermon

Yes the sermon will include Jesus and the Gospel, and yes worship songs have to do with Jesus, but sermons and songs vary widely in their message. At New City, I talk through my sermon with our worship director so we can pick songs out of our existing song bank that go the best with the sermon.

Especially if you do a worship song after the message (as we often do), if you can then sing about what you just heard, and it can create a powerful moment.

6) Don't put too many songs in your service

Again, because most people at your church only sing at your services, doing too many songs can not only lead to people become disengaged, but it can also tire their vocal chords.

There isn't a magic number to the number of songs you should do, and this is definitely dependent on context and culture, but we have found that four songs often works well for us.

And to be clear, if it was up to my preferences we would do six songs every weekend. But I'd rather do fewer songs with more engaged singing than a bunch of songs because I would prefer it.

7) Keep the songs your church enjoys to sing

As we introduce a new song and therefore remove a song from our song bank, we are aware of songs that our church loves to sing. We make sure to keep the ones our people enjoy to sing and try to plan at least one of them every week.