Choosing Songs for Worship - The Definitive Guide

Choosing the right worship songs is probably 50% of all what good worship leading is all about—if not more!

When we talk about worship inside the church, songs are the primary language of the soul to express worship.

So you see, one of the easiest mistakes we can make is to choose the wrong set of songs.

In this guide, we’ll look at how to choose songs for worship. This guide will serve as a practical blueprint to construct effective worship set-lists that facilitate engaged congregational worship in your church.

Follow this guide and you’ll get it right—consistently.

You can also download this guide for free—trust me, the PDF has lots of valuable bonus content that you'd love to check out!

What is a Worship Set-List?

A worship set-list or set is the planned list of songs in a definite sequence that a worship team intends to use in a worship session. – The Worship Kenbook

Let’s think about that for a moment.

A set-list is carefully planned before the session (yes, planning on stage is not a smart option, no matter what you think the Holy Spirit is telling you)
Based on musical and logical parameters (more on these later), it needs to be in a specific sequence that supports our worship

This means we have to think like an artist bringing together different colors on a canvas to create a beautiful picture; or a story-teller narrating a story in a manner that draws the listener into it and brings it to life.

A good set-list engages the congregation, encourages participation, places appropriate prayers in the hearts of the people, moves them to intimacy with God and invokes a love response towards Him.

How to choose songs for worship that actually engage your congregation

Developing a Song-Base that provides quick song ideas when you need them

A powerful set-list doesn’t materialize out of thin air just when we sit down to plan for an upcoming worship session.

It requires a regular habit of collecting usable songs whenever we come across them, and storing them in an easy-to-access manner.

My preference is to put them into an Excel spreadsheet cataloguing them with these fields: song title, song theme, key, tempo and rhythm.

Here’s a quick sample for better understanding:

You could also include more fields if you wish like a related scripture verse, name of the songwriter etc.

The habit required it this: whenever a song inspires you and something in your spirit tells you it’s a usable one, add it to the list.

This becomes the song-base: a master list of possible songs for congregational worship.

The hallmark of a good song-base is the variety of songs in it; fast songs, slow songs, medium tempo songs, songs with different time signatures and so on.

Thematically also, an ideal song-base would have something for every occasion with diverse themes like the Cross, redemption, spiritual warfare, repentance, healing, deliverance, evangelism, communion, fellowship, creation, mercy, love, forgiveness, thanksgiving, power, surrender, faith, hope, resurrection, judgment, second coming, mission, justice etc.

And btw, don't just stick to contemporary songs. Choosing hymns for worship is a great idea too—have something for everyone and serve your entire church—not just a particular age group.

If you haven’t done so, kick-start your song-base today, it’s the first step to building effective worship set-lists. If you already have, read on.

Choosing songs for worship – the best practices to construct anointed set lists

Choosing worship songs by theme

Learning how to choose songs for worship should begin with the question “What is the subject of the session?” This is important because without a theme, we lack direction and without direction we lack focus. A lack of focus is… well… a surefire route to making a mess of the worship!

The point is that a set-list for Good Friday should be different from a set-list for Easter.

So make choosing worship songs by theme a priority.

With the theme in mind, start praying to the Holy Spirit and find out what’s in His heart. A useful question to ask here would be, “Lord, what should our Church be praying during this worship session?”

Now, start writing down what you believe the Lord is placing in your heart. Sometimes, we may come up with a few focus words; other times, titles of songs. This is more of a ‘brainstorming session with the Lord’—so just jot down everything without evaluating it too much—this is just a preliminary draft.

Let’s assume the theme is ‘the Passion of the Lord’. While praying, the Holy Spirit may inspire us with specific themes, which will guide us to choose certain songs. If we get a focus-word like ‘thanksgiving’ for instance, we may want to go with a song like “Thank You for the Cross”.

Here are a few more examples:

This method also prevents us from picking worship songs just because we happen to like them or they happen to be the current favorites with the congregation.

We will instead consider what our Church needs to be singing as opposed to what we want to sing. Too often, we simply pick a song because it’s known, popular, and people like to sing it. While it’s okay to consider the congregation’s comfort, need outweighs want any day.

The best songs are songs that speak directly to what your congregation is experiencing. – David Santistevan

If the theme happens to be something like, “the armor of God”, it would be difficult to fill an entire set-list with songs around it. In such cases, we could pick at least one song that highlights the theme. For example, for a theme like “the armor of God” we could look at something like “O Church Arise” (Stuart Townend, Keith Getty) as the highlight-song in the set.

We are called to be enablers of truth-filled worship. Constructing a session only filled with people’s favorite Christian tunes is entertainment, and not worship. So start with the theme, consider what we should be praying and build the habit of picking worship songs, which are lyrically close matches to it.

Coming back to the theme of ‘the Passion of the Lord’, the list of possible songs could look something like this (song title, key, tempo, rhythm):

Let’s say we’ll be leading worship for about 30 minutes. It’s a no brainer that 16 songs are way too many; choosing 4-5 praise and worship songs would be more apt.

The process of pruning this draft list down to 4 or 5 songs requires us to consider these two important concepts:

Worship progressions
Song keys

Speed up your set-list creation using worship progressions

A progression can be defined as the sequence or order of songs in a worship set list based on their tempo. – The Worship Kenbook

Knowing progressions is the key to decide which songs can be used at the beginning, middle or at the end of a worship session.

In his wonderful book “To Know You More”, veteran Vineyard worship leader, Andy Park illustrates progressions or curves or shapes using line charts. I am going to do something similar here.

Bear in mind that the Y-Axis (vertical side) measures tempo and the X-Axis (horizontal side) measures time in minutes.

The Standard Progression

We’ll continue with the theme “the passion of the Lord” and plot sample set-lists using the standard progression.

In this progression, we start with up-tempo songs, move to medium-tempo songs and then close with slower, more intimate songs.

This is the most common worship progression out there and works in most situations such as regular prayer meetings, Sunday worship, morning sessions in a retreat etc.

Standard Progression: Fast – Medium – Slow.

The Same Love
You Alone Can Rescue
Oh to See the Dawn
Once Again
Amazing Love (You Are My King)

When choosing praise and worship songs using the Standard progression, what works well for me is a 3-stage approach:

Stage-1: Invitation
Stage-2: Story
Stage-3: Response

When we say ‘Invitational’, we only tend to think of songs like “Come Now is The Time to Worship”. But check out these lyrics from “The Same Love” by Paul Baloche:

The same love that set the captives free
The same love that opened eyes to see
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name
The same God that spread the heavens wide
The same God that was crucified
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name
You're calling You're calling
You're calling us to the cross

See how it’s got ‘invitation’ written all over it? Moreover, it also serves as a great launch pad to worship around the theme of “the passion of the Christ”.

The second song “You Alone Can Rescue” starts telling the story of saving grace and leads us to reflect on our own helplessness and how much we need Jesus.

“Oh to See the Dawn” completes the story with precise details of what Christ accomplished on the Cross.

“Once Again” calls for a personal, grateful reflection of the Passion and the set ends with another personal response, “You are my King.”

While this only completes the Standard Progression, it’s not the only progression available for worship. The Standard Shape itself has 3 variations and there are two more extremely important progressions that you need to know. All of these are covered in detail with examples in the PDF guide. Download it for free!

Produce continuity and flow by considering song keys when choosing praise and worship Songs

Once you’ve chosen the appropriate progression for your session and zoned in on the songs, another very useful practice in choosing praise and worship songs is to group the songs by their keys.

To understand this better, let’s refer couple of set lists by Alastair Vance, worship leader at Story Church, Durham, NC—the keys are mentioned in parenthesis:

Set-list for 21-Feb-2016

Fierce – Jesus Culture (B)
Your Promises – Elevation Worship (B)
Grace On Top Of Grace – Fellowship Creative (B)
Beautiful Things – Gungor (D)

Set-list for 21-Sep-2014

Never Gonna Let Me Go – Kristian Stanfill (B)
This Is Amazing Grace – Jeremy Riddle (B)
I Am – Crowder (B)
Hope’s Anthem – Bethel (B)
My Guardian – Ben Cantelon (F#)

See what he’s done? You can visit his blog for more set-lists and you’ll keep noticing this: the songs are always grouped by key.

A song in the key of ‘B’ is almost always followed by another song in the same key. This makes it easier to move from one song to another seamlessly without distracting the congregation.

Think about and plan what songs fit together based on key transitions. Try not to be all over the alphabet by singing in multiple keys that do not compliment one another. - Jeremy Armstrong

So next time you put choose songs for worship, try to group the songs by same or related keys—it’s a vital element in creating a sense of flow in your set-list.

Having seen how to pray through the process of choosing songs for worship while integrating useful best practices, let’s also look at the characteristics of a powerful worship set-list.

The 4 C’s of a Powerful Set-List

It’s not about how wonderful we feel, how enjoyable it is, how skillful the music is or how many people compliment us.

Leading worship is about magnifying God, and that’s the core goal of building a set-list.

So once you start applying what you're learning here on how to choose songs for worship leading and your selection of songs is ready to finalise your set list, do a simple check to see if it holds these four qualities, which I believe, are the hallmarks of powerful worship set-lists:

1. Call

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to say that effective set-lists are invitational—to the people and to the Lord. They have a ‘welcoming’ feel about them that calls people to offer their praise comfortably.

Think of songs like “Come Now is the Time to worship”, “This is Your House”, “The Same Love”, “Arise” etc. and I am sure you get the picture.

2. Connect

The songs we sing should resonate with the people and move them to participate. It’s not so much about what the worship leader wants to sing as much as it’s about what the church needs to pray.

Great set-lists have this pleasant ability to connect with the congregation and enable them to express their hearts to the Lord.

3. Convey

Powerful set-lists make a point and bring home a message. They are not about aimlessly stringing together a random bunch of songs; rather it’s about placing each song with intent and purpose.

Put together, the chosen songs will teach truths about God, our faith and even ourselves.

4. Convert

Effective set-lists facilitate change in the hearts of the worshipers and evoke a response towards the Lord. The response could be anything from resolving to love the Lord more or forgiving someone to being deeply convicted of a truth or an increase in personal faith.

While being emotive is wonderful, a great set-list will go beyond the emotional and facilitate conversion on the inside.

Okay, it’s time to sum up. Let’s look at 8 tips to construct worship set-lists that actually work in congregational worship.

Choosing songs for worship—8 tips to create the best possible worship set lists

1. Pay attention to the theme of the day

Start with the theme and list down possible songs around it. A useful rule-of-thumb is to have at least one song in the set-list that highlights the theme.

2. Keep the focus on God

Psalm 100:4 teaches us that when we worship God, we are entering His gates, His courts and into His Presence. So ideally, we must give thanks to Him and praise His Name.

If our worship leading is not bringing about a sense of reverence for God, something’s amiss!

Worship must be about God—so fewer songs about ‘us’ and more songs about and to Him are better.

3. Prioritize familiar songs above new songs

Worship leaders/musicians get tired of songs faster than others. While I totally get that, 99% of the times, known songs lead to better participation than new songs.

So a few new songs coupled with more familiar songs would be the way to go.

4. Don’t ignore new songs

It is one thing to take known songs to keep the congregation comfortable, but we shouldn’t stop there!

Learning how to choose songs for worship also requires developing an open ear to discover those fresh prayers in song, and challenge people to move out of their comfort zones. Introducing one or two new songs in a month helps in this regard.

5. Look at the song, not the songwriter

No matter how brilliant a songwriter is, not every song written by him/her will be a winner in congregational worship.

When choosing songs for worship, it is necessary to assess a song based on the strength of its lyrics, melody, ‘singability’ etc. and not just by the name/reputation of its songwriter.

6. While songs need to be congregation-friendly, they should also be ‘our’ congregation-friendly

Songs that work in the United States may not work in India and vice versa. While evaluating congregational accessibility of a song, it’s essential to also consider local cultural accessibility.

Consider who is our congregation (teens? young adults? elders?), and pick songs accordingly. Remember to keep it simple—a typical congregation consists mainly of regular folk rather than highly skilled musicians/singers.

7. Consider musical elements

Can the song be sung at a comfortable key? Are the tempo and rhythm blending smoothly into the overall set-list? Is the style/complexity within the range and ability of the musicians and congregation?

If the answer is ‘no’ to these questions, the song should most likely not make it to the set-list.

8. Listen to the Holy Spirit

It does not take a genius to figure this out, but the temptation to finalize a set-list based on our experience and skill always lurks around.

Praying to the Holy Spirit, waiting on Him and obeying His inspiration is probably the most fundamental responsibility of a worship leader while choosing songs for worship.

Another good practice is to run the entire set-list in a time of personal worship, gauge what works and what does not and edit accordingly. This refines the set-list further.

“Those who are most prepared are the most led by the Spirit of God.” – Chris Tomlin

It’s your turn now

Well, it’s time to actually apply these proven practices into your ministry while choosing songs for worship.

To make the process easy for you, I’ve made a free PDF guide, which also contains the following valuable additional content that’s not included in this article:

3 variations of the Standard progression
The Ascending progression
The Serene progression
Bonus section: How to use new songs in worship

Download the free PDF guide now!