Good post by Mark Altrogge (who has written several of the songs we use on Sunday morning) on how we should pick songs to sing in church.

His points: briefly:

• Are doctrinally sound (Is it biblically accurate? Years ago, we sang a song about blowing a trumpet and victory and when I looked up the passage in the Bible it was about God’s judgment on his people)
• Are significant (“Joy is the flag flown from the castle of my heart when the king is in residence there” – wave your handkerchief above your head as you sing – it’s probably true but is it significant?)
• Have creative lyrics (Come on now, we can do better than “You saved my soul and made me whole”), yet “literarily apt and thoughtful” (One man I know once said, “God is so good – he’s like a greasy piece of fried chicken” – creative, but the metaphor doesn’t work too well)
• Have good music (Raise your hand if you want boring music and melodies)
• Have music that’s appropriate for the lyrics (Does a snarling death-growl vocal fit lyrics declaring the holiness and majesty of God? Maybe it could to some, but if possible we should seek to appeal to a wide audience). We should seek music and melodies that highlight the lyrics.

9 Marks has a good blog post about what the new testament says we should do when we gather, adapted from the book Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship. The five short points:

1. Read the Bible
2. Preach the Bible
3. Pray the Bible
4. Sing the Bible
5. See the Bible (in the sacraments of Baptism and The Lord’s Supper)

These (and a couple others) are exactly the elements of corporate worship we will be discussing in the first session of our Music Ministry Workshop on October 15.