In his book “The Air I Breathe: Worship as a Way of Life“, Louie Giglio shows us that we all worship something, regardless or our religion or lack thereof, and that something often is not God. [...]

The purpose of corporate worship: singing, prayer, reading and listening to God’s word, preaching His word and listening to that preaching, giving of tithes and offerings, participation in communion: The Lord’s Supper, and fellowship together with God’s people (all of which has an evangelistic effect on the unsaved in our midst) is not (contrary to much popular practice) to stir up some subjective feeling of personal connection to God. It is, in fact, to encounter God Himself together as Jesus’ body, through the work of the Holy Spirit by means of all the things listed above.  (This is part of why it is so crucial that we do not define “worship” as simply the singing in our worship services). [...]

Periodically, we as a ministry evaluate a batch of new songs for introduction to our church.  We use an excellent rubric created by Bob Kauflin which I’ll post about later.

We ask for submissions from interested members of our church and especially from within the music ministry (as these people tend to have their “ear to the ground” for new music.) and evaluate them as a group.

Often times we pass up what in most respects is a fine song, simply because there is a better one that serves the same function.  The question is sometimes asked: “Why not do this one? what’s the harm? It’s a good song and passes all the criteria?”

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