What should we sing?

This is an amazingly big question in church life. It has been the cause of many hours of discussion and debate. The truth of the matter is that everyone has their own tastes in songs and hymns, and wants those more than everything else.

However, there has to be objective criteria for the selections made. I used to be of the opinion that there should be a 50/50 split between what may be called older hymns and newer songs. I have, over the last few years, come to realise that what is sung should not be determined by the age of the song. We do have a vast heritage of hymns that have been written over many centuries, as well as many songs written in the last few years. How then do we decide?

We need to realise that we are living in the first decade of the 21st century, and not in the 18th, 19th or even the middle of the 20th. This needs to be taken into account in this whole subject. This does not mean, though, that I think there is no place for older hymns in the present context. The Church would lose so much if they were never sung. However, when we use such hymns, we have to make sure we select the best of them, and those that are understandable to people today. We must, on the other hand, not so things just so as to be trendy - sing the latest song simply because everyone else is singing it.

I know I haven't really begun to answer the question yet, but I wanted to mention those things first. One way of deciding is to use criteria that we use in the church of which I am a member. We call it the BUSL test: Everything must be

Biblical - faithful to Scripture in the context that it was given. The older hymns do set a good example in this respect, there is tremendous theology in them. However, there are songwriters now writing such hymns, notably Stuart Townend together with Keith and Kristyn Getty. The advantage of these newer writers is that they are expressing deep theological truths in a contemporary idiom.#

Understandable - we need to understand what we sing. Some of the older ones are not understandable to a modern congregation - we need to choose those that are. Modernisation of words, if done sensitively can be helpful.

Singable - the tunes need to be those which can be easily sung by a congregation, regardless of style. I haven't mentioned style yet, but we should be able to incorporate a variety of styles provided that they conform to criteria such as this.

Lyrical - in other words, are the words well written. There is no problem with some songs being simpler than others, but in all cases the lyrics need to be of good quality.

I could write a great deal more, and no doubt this is a subject to which I will return later. I would just say at the moment that I believe that the above criteria transcend the ages and styles of the songs, and represent a way forward in selecting what to sing as we meet together.