Coming Soon: Guest posts about worship

When I was in youth ministry, I came up with the idea of polling the students, asking them to rank their favorite worship song. Then we’d do a series in the Summer that would count down their favorites. In my head, it would have been kind of like a TRL-style of worship service, counting down the top songs – one each week. We’d build the services around the favorite songs, revealing the a top song each week and counting down to number one by the end of Summer. It sounded like a fun idea. I never got around to doing it in a youth ministry context.

I thought it could be a fun thing to do for a church-wide experience  while I was preaching. I thought it would be a pretty cool idea to create a sermon series based on the congregation’s favorite songs of worship. Each message would be based on one of the “top” songs that the congregation had voted on. I would discuss the story behind the song, the scriptural allusions in the lyrics, and what makes the song such a powerful experience for our congregation.

Unfortunately, I never got around to putting that series together.

A few weeks ago, it hit me that I don’t have to be preaching somewhere in order to put together a series like this. Of course, it wouldn’t be a sermon series, but that might not be a bad thing. It hit me that I could create a series of posts on this blog, discussing some of the hymns and praise songs that have spoken to me most powerfully over the years.

As I considered putting together this series, I initially thought about polling you, the readers, about your favorite song of worship. And while I might do that sometime in the future, I’ve come up with another way to do this series that I think will be pretty fun.

I asked myself, “Why limit this to just my perspective? Why not open this up to other people so they can share their insights and experiences? Why not let others tell their stories?”

So I’ve decided to invite others to share their stories as guest posts on this blog. I’ve asked some friends and colleagues to answer these questions: “What’s your favorite worship song (hymn, praise song, chorus, etc.)? Why?” I’m excited about the team of bloggers who have agreed to share their stories. I think everyone’s different perspectives stemming from their own life-experiences will be encouraging and challenging. It might even be a little bit eye-opening, too.

I’d also like to open this up to you, the reader. What’s your favorite worship song? What moves you? Is there a particular song that evokes a powerful memory? Is there one that gives you chills every time you sing the words? We’d like to hear it! If you have a song you’d like to share about, submit a comment with your email address. I’ll email you some more specific details and we’ll get the ball rolling. I promise to keep the comments on this post private, so no one else will be able to see your email address (and you won’t get hit by the email spambots).

I’m really excited about this series! I’m looking forward to being challenged by some pretty sharp people. I hope you are, too!