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[JFBEagle]

Thinking about Sunday Worship services here ...

Is it better to have a wide range of songs (hymns) or should the song choice be limited by the church leaders to a small set of familiar ones?

After changing the style and format of evening services I have just analysed the songs we have used. Over 30 weeks we have used 104 different songs/hymns.
Of these more than half were only used once and 15 were used four or more times.  The most popular choice by worship leaders was used eight times.

I have my own thoughts but I would be interested to know what others think.

[Jason]

I think it is important for the congregation to get familiar with the songs. It is hard to for them worship if they are bombarded with new songs. They will focus on reading the words rather than focusing on God.

We have always practiced to only introduce one new song per month and to do it often in the beginning.

[JFBEagle]

I'm with you on this Jason. With the exception of about half a dozen of this list these were all known songs.
The ones that had been used most were mostly recent introductions.

[Pastor Colin]

I recently brought a seriese of messages on the value of improving our love life (with Christ), and managed to get everyone in my congregation to tell me what their favorite hymns were.  We then did a service where we sang most of them and the message was on singing love songs to the Lord.  The best thing I got out of the whole thing was a list of everyone's favorite hymns, so I rotate them as much as I can.

My congregation are all senior citizens, and they are very resistant to singing hymns they do not know.