Over the past fifteen years as Worship Pastor in my local church, I have found it a challenge to include worship songs that will integrate well into the Christmas season set list. I love pulling out the standard Christmas carols that we only seem to sing once a year, but I’ve found that very few of them are sung "to" The Lord. I believe it is so important in our congregational worship times to get our hearts going "vertical." So during the month of December, I will sometimes add a simple tag at the end of a familiar carol that gets us singing "to" the Lord instead of just "about" The Lord.

For example, at the end of "O Come Let Us Adore Him," try adding a chorus of "O Jesus we adore You, O Jesus we adore You" over the same chord progression. Another idea is taking a song like "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and at the end, where we sing "glory to the newborn King," add a simple tag by staying on the ending chord but keep the drums going. As we keep the rhythm going a bit, we'll start singing out a simple melody that the congregation can pick up easily while repeating the words...."we give You glory Lord, we give You glory." Practice a few different approaches in your rehearsal until you find a melody and chord progression that really helps the Christmas Carol turn into more of a vertical song. Similar to inhaling and exhaling, the carol is like inhaling all this wonderful content and the exhale is a simple worship response back to God. Remember to keep it simple.

Weiterlesen: A Christmas Offering