The Top 25 Worship Songs with Momentum

Note: If you have access to Spotify, you can listen to the playlist dedicated to the survey results there.

CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing, Inc.) had updated their Top Worship Song Rankings survey results. This current survey details song usage from between April 1, 2014 to Sept 30, 2014, and it takes them a couple of months to collect the data and crunch the numbers. Their current Top 25 can be read through this link.

I have mixed feelings about such lists.

Positive Attributes of the CCLI Rankings

On the one hand, there is no other ranking list like it. General Top 40 lists (like Billboard) use a variety of factors to determine what songs are popular through a myriad of factors, including both airplay and record sales. By contrast, this is solely the results of a bi-annual survey, passed out again and again to a revolving number of thousands of worship leaders, from all denominations.

Nobody puts a gun to their head as to what songs to use in their religious services; they can play whatever they want. That makes the CCLI list the most accurate of its kind.

Negative Attributes

On the other hand, the list can be faulty by what it leaves out. Songs from some notable Catholic publishing houses, like Oregon Catholic Press and World Library Publications, have chosen to not participate in CCLI’s program in favor of their own program, LicenSing online. They even have their own Top 12 List, which by the looks of it, do not change all that much between years.

This doesn’t even draw into attention the popular songs that are in the public domain, which are rarely ranked on a seasonal basis. Hymns remain the most popular song style of worship leaders throughout the world, but are almost entirely ignored from song lists like this, because they are not tallied in these sorts of surveys. They can’t. No royalty payments go to a public domain song.

Another problem with these lists is that it is only as accurate as the survey takers are. It may be surprising to fans of John Michael Talbot that his highest ranked song is the non-congregational-friendly “Like A Lion.” However, it is not likely that Talbot’s version is used; a more popular version, covered by David Crowder and Newsboys, has become a rallying cry for youth groups around the country. And yet, this mistake, on account of a number of survey-takers has put Talbot on the list.

One last problem with these lists is that a popularity of a worship song does not measure the orthodoxy of the song itself. Many popular songs have outright doctrinal errors in them, whether it be from clumsy rendering of lyrics or the songwriter’s doctrinal upbringing.

Worth A Listen

Nonetheless, if you are interested in searching these lists for the songs most used in worship circles that employ the CCLI license, then you will not have a better representation of such lists. There are good songs worth noting here. There are songs that work surprisingly well in environments as varied as a youth group meeting, a high school rally, or a LifeTeen liturgy.

Every six months I crunch the numbers of from their Top 2000 list, and come up with those songs that have the most momentum behind them in that period. That means that while a long-held standard like “How Great Thou Art” can reside on the list for decades, it is generally assumed that most worship leaders know of that song already and do not need to relearn that every six months.

The following are those songs that have the most momentum behind them in the prior six month period. They are the songs that most worship leaders added to their repertoires during that time frame. Again, it needs to be stated that popularity does not mean orthodoxy, nor does it mean that it’s style could be somehow work for your group.

How many of these songs do you know?

The Top 25 Momentum List

 TITLE                       PERFORMER               RANK    LAST RANK
1   This Is Amazing Grace           Phil Wickham / Bethel Music 2       20
2   Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)    Hillsong United         3       10
3   Forever (We Sing Hallelujah)        Kari Jobe                   24      416
4   Alive                       Hillsong Young and Free 28      112
5   We Believe                  Newsboys                49      919
6   Christ Is Enough                Hillsong                    40      44
7   Man Of Sorrows              Hillsong United         52      109
8   Wake                        Hillsong Young and Free 81      160
9   Great Are You Lord          All Sons & Daughters        55      100
10  Holy Spirit                 Jesus Culture               23      38
11  I Am                        David Crowder           100     868
12  Open Up The Heavens         Meredith Andrews            66      86
13  Only King Forever               Elevation Worship           106     544
14  Sinking Deep                    Hillsong Young and Free 130     367
15  Relentless                  Hillsong                    89      190
16  Your Grace Finds Me         Matt Redman             137     140
17  Anchor                      Hillsong United         134     336
18  This I Believe (The Creed)      Hillsong United         146     n/a
19  All The People Said Amen        Matt Maher              145     805
20  Every Praise                    Hezekiah Walker         150     381
21  You Make Me Brave           Bethel Music                165     n/a
22  No One Higher               Aaron Shust             161     192
23  Scandal Of Grace                Hillsong United         90      174
24  My Heart Is Yours               Kristian Stanfill / Passion 179     n/a
25  The Only Name (Yours Will Be)   Big Daddy Weave         170     287

For those who have Spotify, I have a dedicated playlist that will include these songs and many others from the survey results.

What are your favorite worship songs that you have learned from the last six months? Share below.