Churches are going through rapid changes during this season of COVID-19. It is no secret that leaders, volunteers and congregants have had to adapt quickly to use technology in order to take their church online.
How has worship music changed during this time? In this report we look at:
These songs were most popular during the first 3 weeks of April 1-19 (Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and the sunday after Easter).
Because He Lives was most popular, and was sung in 16% of churches, with Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) coming in second at 11% of churches. The hymn Christ the Lord Is Risen Today was third, sung by 8% of churches.
We measured the songs that had the largest % increase in usage during March 15-31 and April 20 - May 10 when compared to their usage in February, before lockdowns due to COVID-19 were put into effect.
The table below shows 33 songs that had significant shift in usage during COVID-19. The table shows % increase in usage, but is sorted by over all popularity. It is no surprise, that at the top of the list is It is well with my soul, a hymn that has a rich history of consoling Christians in times of crisis.
What patterns emerge when we look at the lyrics of the above songs?
Below we show a ‘word cloud’ built using the raw word counts for all 33 songs combined. Words that appear more frequently are larger.
The word Will was most popular, showing up 183 times total (25 times in God will make a way, 22 times in Everlasting God and 18 times in He will hold me fast). It conveys hope and trust in what God will do.
Names of God (God (108), Lord (71), Jesus (47), Christ (29)) are next in popularity.
The 4th most prevalent word is Victory, counted 53 times. This comes primarily from the two songs Psalm 23 (27 times) and See a Victory (20 times).
As seen above, this simple analysis highlights some words that are featured many times in only one or two songs.
Below we show the percentage of songs that feature top keywords at least once.
Here we see that will is in 67% (22/33) of the songs. Interestingly, the closely related word shall is in 39% of songs (ex, “When He shall come with trumpet sound” from The Solid Rock).
Love is in 45% of songs followed by 39% of songs that address fear. It should be noted that fear is most often paired with a negation in the lyrics (ex “What have I to dread, what have I to fear, Leaning on the everlasting arms?” or “I’m no longer a slave to fear”).
(click on a song to see its most common words)
