Top Songs

In a typical hymnbook, you find around 500 to 600 hymns. Hymnbooks of different denominations reflect some distinct hymns, but the majority of songs across hymnbooks remain the same. The same 90% of songs sung by the hymnbook generation of churches are printed and reprinted in a testimonial to the communal church experience.

Now, however, with the age of print falling behind the rapidly accelerating digital world, there is a new way to document the shared experience that is Christian musical worship.

Christian Copyright Licensing International was created to protect churches and copyright owners around the world, and acts as a distributor for most professional Christian worship musicians. 160 000 churches pay each year for the right to universal access to CCLI's vast bank of worship resources. Being a member allows Glengate to display lyrics to the congregation during worship services, use fully transposable digital sheet music, and print and copy these resources as we please.The licensing fee charged is calculated proportional to our church size, and a percentage is paid as royalties to the composers, lyricists and publishers of the worship music we enjoy so profusely.

CCLI is also able to track member churches' activity through their SongSelect service, and data collected directly from churches. They post a continuous, comprehensive ranking of the 100 most popular songs being sung in churches today. For most of this year, "10 000" Reasons has held the #1 spot. This licensing agency provides information, once manifested in hundreds of similar hymnbooks, now readily available to anyone at the click of a button.

There is a reason some songs are so popular. God is using these songs to speak to the hearts of worship leaders and church congregations throughout North America. He is influencing trends and leading people to sing for a reason. There is something about these songs that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy, and CCLI organizes them for anyone to access. We know first-hand that 10 000 Reasons is a beautiful song that allows people to worship every time we sing it, and the CCLI Top 100 list only corroborates this connection we feel to it. This list is a legitimate resource that the Glengate worship team should continue to use and reflect upon, as it can give us insight into how God is moving in churches across the world, and allow us as worship leaders to better serve Him in our own services.

~ Clara and Heather