Music Ministry has it's own goal...

Choosing music is, obviously, one of our main responsibilities as music ministers.

When I first started choosing music for our (Life Teen) 6:00 contemporary mass back in 1992 the established contemporary catholic music of the time was in the Glory and Praise hymnal. (the blue one, for those of us that remember it well!) Much of my time was spent rearranging these songs, from the folk-mass versions we'd gotten used to hearing, to a more modern, contemporary sound. Songs like "And the Father Will Dance," and "Lift Up Your Hearts to the Lord" were among some of the early song choices for that mass. On the radio we heard Wayne Watson, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Sandi Patti, etc.  Tom Booth in Mesa, AZ was writing (and continues to do so) some great new contemporary music, which also proved very effective. There were other sources, but, needless to say, there was not the abundance of modern church music we have today. Voices As One, Spirit and Song, and Cross Generation were not around, nor was the music of Chris Tomlin or Paul Baloche being played on the radio. The pool of music was smaller then.
Today, the church is blessed with so much new music every single week. Websites feature new songs, videos, podcasts, downloads, etc. We don't have to wait for a songbook to be printed. We just download what we need immediately and make our copies (legally, of course, with paid permission.)  We could do 5 new songs each week and probably never run out of repertoire.

But that's the challenge.

We have to always remember what we are doing and why we are doing it.

Radio stations and websites have a goal: stay current; always have the latest and greatest readily available.

Music ministry has its own goal: engage the assembly in sung worship.

If we simply tried to stay with the latest and greatest all of the time, we would be missing the boat.  Our goal is not to show how current we are for fear of being called stale.  Our goal is to choose music that serves the liturgy. Let's choose music our assembly knows well and can sing. Remember, most people come once a week. A song that was introduced last Sunday is still going to be considered "new" for quite some time. Find a balance of the well-used and the fresh. People like to sing songs they know. They like to be challenged with something new...yes...but not every week!