Should I add a hymn?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16 ESV
I grew up in a smaller church with brown, hardcover Hymns of Glorious Praise hymnbooks in the backs of the pews. We didn’t use them every week or even that often, but they were always there. And I still remember the excitement in the room when we would go into one of those hymns in a Sunday worship service. These days, I lead at a large, multisite church, and I’m sure our only hymnbooks on campus are stored ready-and-waiting and long-forgotten in brown boxes in some closet.
Maybe you’re getting pressure from your leadership to include a few more hymns in your worship sets. Or perhaps you see some of your favorite worship artists releasing or singing versions of them in their concerts. So, should you include more hymns in your weekly worship sets? Let’s ask a few questions:
Why do you want to include them? Examine your motive for wanting to include them in your sets. Are you just trying to pacify your leadership or the grouchy person in your congregation who mentions it every single week? Take an honest look at why you’re even reading this article.
Will it land in your context? Every single congregation and church is different. What works in a church of 4,000 weekly attendees may not work in a church of 100. Will your people relate to and understand the hymn, or will they be too focused on what an “Ebenezer” is and how they can raise it? Can your team confidently handle the more complex or busy chord progressions found in many hymns? We want people to see Jesus clearly in our gatherings.
Does this hymn fit within the theme of the whole service? I’ve been in worship sets where hymns have just been added quickly in the heat of the moment and tagged to the current worship set. I believe that God can use anything, but to me, that can come across as a little bit lazy on our part. When you’re in rehearsal or sitting and practicing the songs by yourself, ask the Holy Spirit to bring a hymn to your mind that directly connects to the music you're practicing. We don’t just want to sing hymns to make our older saints like us.
Will you do the entire song or just a tag? There’s no rule that says you have to do all six verses of Amazing Grace. Would tagging the first verse at the end of another song serve the moment well? Here’s a great example of my friend Kerri tagging “Blessed Assurance” to the end of Charity Gale’s “I Believe.” Start that video at 10:24 to hear it.
Adding a hymn to your worship set can be an incredible way to add depth and richness to your worship set. Many of these songs have incredible backstories and things happening behind the scenes when they were written. As you read those questions above, I hope you don’t shy away from including them in your worship gatherings. It’s just that, as with everything we do as Worship Leaders, we have to make sure we do it intentionally and on purpose. We can trust God to take care of the rest!
Father, thank You for revealing Yourself to Your children. Through creation and Your constant presence, You have inspired men and women throughout time to write beautiful hymns and spiritual songs. Give us the wisdom to take an honest look at the season You have placed us in and the grace to steward it to the best of our abilities. We aren’t here for trends or the applause of men. We exist to worship You and enjoy Your presence forever. Amen.
