“When it comes to song selection, it draws deeply from the rich history of Christian hymnody while including the best of the songs written in recent years. It is perhaps slightly stacked toward the works of Keith and Kristyn Getty and their associated musicians (e.g. Matt Boswell, Matt Papa) but it is, after all, a Getty product.” - Challies
“A good hymnal collects high-quality songs that span centuries and continents and cultures. It is a rich devotional resource for churches and families and individuals, and it fosters beautiful harmonious singing that stirs our hearts.” - Andy Naselli
“Services like MultiTracks, PraiseCharts, and SongSelect offer tools that allow big churches to replicate the recorded versions of new worship songs. Bishop says that for larger churches with the teams and budget, those resources are ideal. But it’s not what most smaller churches need.” - Christianity Today
Recently, over at Proclaim & Defend, Taigen Joos offered some thoughts on projecting song lyrics on screens during congregational singing.
I appreciate pastor Joos’ focus on practicality, and that’s my focus here also. He’s absolutely correct that there are challenges involved in using screens without hymnals, and that churches should think through their options.
So, should churches use screens or hymnals? I see it as a question of tradeoffs. Both approaches have different strengths and weaknesses.
A bit of my background, so you can filter for bias:
“When we announced the discontinuation of LifewayWorship.com, we were not, I think, totally prepared for the response of church leaders. I think we didn’t do enough listening with worship leaders who are in the trenches relying on this tool.” - BPNews
Lifeway will “discontinue lifewayworship.com, a website providing arrangements, charts, sheet music and other music resources for church worship.” - BPNews
