In his most recent book, Mark Batterson quotes a study that suggests that people quit thinking about the lyrics after singing it 30 times.
Is this true? Or do songs mean more the more we sing it? Or do we sing the lyrics but not think about the meaning of them? Does this advocate that we need to retire songs and introduce songs more frequently?
This has me thinking…
I think songs have differing lives of effectiveness based on a lot of things. One of them has to do with over familiarity, like Mark is referring to. Some of it is cultural. And most importantly, what songs are being chosen by God to say what needs to be said and what He wants to hear from us in worship.
What a lot of folks resonate with in older songs they love often has more to do with nostalgia rather than their offering of worship before God. They are more interested in how the song makes them feel as opposed to what is vibrantly expressed as their sacrifice of praise.
These perspectives are not mutually exclusive. But unfortunately, they are more often than we like to admit.