Open With The Same Song – Every Week

Why repetition can be a gift to a worship leader and a congregation

Every week, every worship leader has the hard task of choosing one song that will open the set and provide a spiritual and musical on-ramp to the rest of the worship experience. What if you tried something unexpected – like repeating the same opening song each week for a season?

You’re planning your next set asking the same kinds of hard questions you always do, in a similar order. One in particular leads the way…

Which song should I use to open the set, and how will that open us to worship?

Answering this question often tips the dominoes of our other planning questions, and gets us moving in planning an effective, thematically strong set. Read More

I read this article with more than a little excitement. I am in the process of putting together an article on how small Anglican parishes and missions using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer can make the service of Morning Prayer a more positive experience for guests who have not had any previous exposure to liturgical worship. One of the ways is to make creative use of music in the service. I advocate using metrical versions of the Invitatory Psalm and Canticles; using the same metrical setting of the Venite for several consecutive Sundays; using a bright, upbeat tune for the Venite; singing a variable Office Hymn after the Venite, instead of before the service; limiting the Psalms to one; and singing the Gloria Patria after the Psalm. Too often our services of Morning Prayer consists of lengthy, unbroken blocks of text recited by the congregation or read by a minister. The sermon is tacked onto the end of the service. Our guests are likely to experience these services as long, monotonous, and tiresome. They are not likely to experience them as spiritually-uplifting. They are also likely to leave, vowing never to return again. Their experience may be compared to being invited to someone's home for dinner and then being served the most unappetizing meal imaginable. When this happens to us, we are going to excuse ourselves when we are invited again to that person's home, tell our friends about our experience, and warn them against accepting a dinner invitation from the same person. That person may in time become a better cook but they will be dogged by a damaged reputation. The same thing can happen to a church.