I’ve observed that when picking songs for church services around Christmas time new material needs to be incorporated sparingly because what people (regular and infrequent attenders alike) really want to sing are all the traditional songs.
They’ll belt out the old stuff but stand there in polite bemusement during the new stuff.
Mark Sumpter wishes we could have Christmas every Sunday if it meant churches would see
Generations Hold Hands: elementary age kids, very young children, 14 year olds, 25 year olds— goateed and lip piercings to-boot—stand next to 69 year olds, those still sporting wire frame bifocals, and they’ll work their way through five lines of #221 Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.
and that
Sweat on the Brow is No Biggie: At Christmas we don’t mind having to work at our singing. In our worship age, when we’re told about KISS—Keep It Simple Songwriter, at Advent we’re not afraid of fancy notes, awkward beats, and funny syllables. “The shepherds at those tidings re-joice-ED much in mind…” How odd. I wonder if Chris Tomlin uses re-joice-ED in contemporary expression? At Christmas, that doesn’t scare us, and that’s good. I still struggle with the line in O Come All Ye Faithful, the one, “very God, begotten, not created.” I have to work at this line every time we come to it. The timing with the syllables freaks me. But our willingness to work at freaky beats and syllables is good. We see that people don’t mind going over and over a tune to get it right.
I am not saying that there are no good and singable modern songs.
I’m also not saying that people young or old shouldn’t be challenged to learn melodies and phrasing that may be a bit complex, whether old or new.
But anytime someone tells you that modern, young (unchurched) people just can’t sing hymns tell them to drop by some time in December.
Read Scoring Points For Traditional Hymnody at River City Pastor.
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