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Try These 3 Worship Intros Ready To Use This Sunday!

If you are a Christian worship leader looking to blend the depth of traditional hymns into your modern worship, try these 3 ready-to-use worship intros to bring more meaning to favorite hymns.

While modern worship songs pull at our heartstrings, there is no replacement for the deep life-changing theology taught in many traditional hymns.

Instead of letting these hymns become relics of the past, turn them into declarations of God’s character and His faithfulness!

If you’ve ever thought … 

  • Hymns need to be modernized in order to fit in contemporary worship.
  • Hymn lyrics need to be changed for people to understand them today.
  • Hymns don’t fit our setting because our band is electric.

Please keep reading!

3 Creative Elements Applied To 3 Different Hymns

Before you throw out a beautiful hymn, consider these 3 elements to help bring it into relevant context for your worshipers.

  1. Adding A Responsive Worship Element
  2. Setting The Stage With Scripture
  3. Sharing The Context Of Its Creation

In this post, you’ll see each of these applied to one specific hymn with ready-to-use scripts, so you can use one this Sunday with no added research or creative brain power needed!

However, keep these 3 elements in mind for the future too! Each element can be applied to many hymns as well as modern worship songs for incredible impact.

Come Thou Fount: Create A Responsive Worship Station With Stones

Preparation Before Sunday: Collect a pile of large rocks and set them on the worship stage, making sure there is more than one for every worshiper. Set it on a small table up front for visibility.

On Sunday: Begin leading your congregation in singing the traditional hymn, “Come Thou Fount.” After singing verse 1, pause. Before continuing with verse 2, say the following:

Before we continue to verse 2, I want to take a minute to share something with you. Verse 2 starts with a phrase some of us might be unfamiliar with. We are about to sing: “Here I raise my Ebenezer!” [I always chuckle at this!] What is an Ebenezer anyway? 

The Ebenezer stone appears in 1 Samuel 7 when the Israelites were under attack. They were terrified for their very lives, and the short story is … God stepped in and saved them.

1 Samuel 7:12 says, “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”

This is the reference in the hymn. You see, Samuel knew how important it was to remember God’s intervention in our lives. He also knew we would forget –– even amazing miracles –– we forget. 

So, this Ebenezer stone, this rock, is the reminder. The reminder that God stepped in. 

Life isn’t always easy for us either. We’re frustrated, scared, unsure. We get attacked, feel insecure, and we’re not sure what the future holds. But if we take a look back and quiet our hearts, we can remember where God showed up in the past. And it’s a reminder that we have an actual Living God who loves us — who’s involved in every moment of worry or joy, boredom, or busy.

Can you imagine if we built a physical rock-pile reminder of God’s intervention in our lives today? Of everytime we felt His presence? Every time He restored our hope? Every time He provided? 

God IS present, He IS speaking, and He WILL provide –– in whatever you are facing today. 

The Old Testament is full of stories of stone altars. Physical reminders of this All-Powerful God we serve. Maybe we could gain some wisdom from this ancient practice.

Can you think of a time when you knew God was real? Just one moment. When He showed up in your life. 

Maybe it was a feeling of comfort. A whisper of guidance. A divine meeting of a new friend. Maybe it was a healing. A job offer. Or an all-out rescue. Maybe when you were very young.

Just think of one time. Take a minute to close your eyes. Ask God to help you remember.

[Pause here for a few moments.]

And as we continue singing the hymn … “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I come …”  I want to invite you to come up.

Just come up and take a stone from this pile, as a symbol, a physical remembrance of God’s faithfulness in your own lives.

This is your very own Ebenezer.

Continue to sing the rest of “Come Thou Fount,” starting at verse 2 where you left off. With “Here I raise my Ebenezer”, worshipers come up, take a stone, and return back to their seats.

After the hymn concludes, encourage them to keep the stone somewhere as a reminder of God’s intervention & involvement in their lives.

Holy, Holy, Holy (Lord God Almighty): Read Ezekiel 1 Before You Sing

Before you begin leading “Holy, Holy, Holy” say the following:

A very long time ago, there was a prophet named Ezekiel. I don’t know much about him, but I want to share a vision he had.

One day, he was standing by a river. And God showed up. I don’t know why God showed up like He did, but I can’t imagine what Ezekiel saw. What he heard. The awe he must have felt.

Sometimes, we forget how amazing, how set-apart, how big & powerful our God is. I think He gives visions like these as reminders, chances for us to experience Him in His greatness.

As I read to you from Ezekiel 1, I ask you to close your eyes. To picture standing by a river and seeing, hearing, and feeling this:

“I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze.

Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead …

They each had two wings spreading out upward, each wing touching that of the creature on either side; and each had two other wings covering its body. Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.

The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. … I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature  … They sparkled like topaz … Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels …

Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked something like a vault, sparkling like crystal, and awesome. … When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty … like the tumult of an army.  

Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings … and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.  

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.”

(This reading is directly from Ezekiel 1:4-28, edited slightly for brevity. Please read VERY slowly, with many pauses and emphasis. Allow your worshipers to imagine – to feel – to hear – to see. Go directly into singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy – Lord God Almighty.” If you can do it without tearing up, good for you. I cannot.)

Sing “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

It Is Well With My Soul: Tell The Story Of Horatio G. Spafford

“It is Well With My Soul” was written in a season when nothing seemed very “well” at all. This hymn is perfect for a global pandemic, a church split, a tearful tragedy, or times of conflict. 

While you may be familiar with the context in which It Is Well With My Soul was written, many are not. And even if this story has been told before, the reminder is well worth sharing.

Many times in this life, we aren’t feeling as if “It Is Well” –– and that is the context of this reminder. 

Share this before leading your worshipers in this hymn:

The hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul,” was written by Horatio G. Spafford in the 1800s. He was successful in business, but no stranger to tragedy. After losing a young son to pneumonia, Spafford went on to lose much of his business due to the great Chicago fire. After rebuilding his business, he sent his wife and 4 daughters ahead of him on a trip to Europe. As they traveled across the ocean, the journey turned tragic. All four daughters were swept away and only his wife was saved, found clinging to a piece of debris.

As Spafford journeyed across the ocean to join his grieving wife, the captain of the ship pointed out the location where Spafford’s 4 daughters were lost at sea. They were four days into their journey. It is in this context that this hymn was written. 

“When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Wherever you find yourself today, feeling blessed, feeling uncertain, feeling scared, feeling attacked, we hold onto not just the hope of the future, but God’s promise for us today.

As Hebrews 13:5 says, I will never leave you or forsake you … and Isaiah 41:10 … I am the Lord Your God and I will uphold you. 

Sing, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

Do Traditional Hymns Have A Place In Modern Worship?

Oh yeah,

Pick a Sunday, use one of the ideas above, and watch how God moves!

Remember, each of these 3 elements can be used to give new life to other hymns and modern worship songs as well:

  1. Create A Responsive Worship Station
  2. Set The Stage With Scripture
  3. Share The Context Of The Hymn’s Creation

Coming soon, I’ll be sharing how to bring 3 Christmas Carols to more depth and meaning by using those same 3 concepts!

Read More

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