The Top Five Songs
Have you ever used Planning Center Online’s list of top songs to help you plan your set? https://services.planningcenteronline.com/top\_songs gives you the top songs from all PCO’s 60,000+ churches for last week, this week, and the next four weeks. Unlike CCLI’s top songs, which are based on reporting, PCO’s top songs are based on what worship leaders put in PCO this week.
I like to check it occasionally to see what songs are resonating broadly. If you click on one that’s not in your database, it’ll add it. And it also shows how it ranks based on one year ago.
Not surprisingly, this Sunday, December 4th’s top five songs are:
King Of Kings
O Come All Ye Faithful
O Come O Come Emmanuel
Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
A couple of commentaries.
King Of Kings
This is the Hillsong tune that starts:
In the darkness, we were waiting
Without hope, without light
Till from heaven You came running
There was mercy in Your eyes
To fulfill the law and prophets
To a virgin came the Word
From a throne of endless glory
To a cradle in the dirt
Beautifully poetic for the second Sunday in Advent. If I were leading it, I’d highlight the “waiting in the darkness” part. Maybe even pair it with some dark scripture to get us to anticipate something other than a chaotic, busy December.
O Come All Ye Faithful
I was at a choral and orchestral Christmas concert this last weekend with my family, and when they started playing this one, I almost teared up. But more on this song in a minute.
O Come O Come Emmanuel
This one is a must for Advent, right? This centuries-old classic pairs the agony of waiting with the joy of what’s coming. And in these days, we certainly need to sing, “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight, And order all things far and nigh, Bid envy strife and quarrels cease….” Come, LORD Jesus!
Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)
I’m only guessing that most churches doing this one are indeed doing Chris Tomlin’s version with the added chorus. With “Joy, unspeakable joy, It rises in my soul, Never lets me go.” Again, more on this one in a minute.
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
Have you ever sung the fourth verse?
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us thy heav’nly Home;
Rise the Woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent’s Head.
Adam’s Likeness now efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place;
Second Adam from above,
Work it in us by thy Love.
That’s intense! I’d want to put those lyrics up for everyone to read before singing that verse.
But did you notice that three of the top five songs for December 4th are proclamations most suited for Christmas Day, for the actual Christ Mass? In other words, they don’t speak of our longing or waiting. Advent means coming. It’s the beginning of the church calendar, where we are in preparation mode to celebrate rather than being in celebration mode already.
I’m not one of those sticklers that says you can never sing “joy to the world the Lord is come” before the day we celebrate it. But if PCO’s top five is any indication of how we as worship leaders think, it would seem that we’re just picking a few popular Christmas songs rather than deliberately building anticipation.
I also know how difficult it can be to choose well during this season. Here’s my singular encouragement to you: Ask the Father what He wants His Church to sing. And then follow that cue in complete freedom.
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
The Top Five Songs (Nº 350)
