The following guidelines help us choose our songs for worship each Sunday at Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

  • Choose songs from the Trinity Psalter Hymnal
  • Choose each song based on its place in the order of worship. Each song should respond to what comes before it. Let the first song in the morning respond to our confession of faith, the second to God’s pardon of our sins, the third to his word in the sermon, the fourth to communion. Follow the same pattern for the evening service.
  • Choose songs that foreshadow or reflect sermon themes.
  • Give shorter songs preference over longer songs when the Lord’s Supper is served.
  • Include at least one psalm (1-150). Use the index in the TPH to find psalms by theme. You can also use this table.
  • In the evenings we sing the psalm that is read. If there are a couple tune options we pick from those. Otherwise we just sing what’s in the book
  • Choose familiar songs and tunes. Repeating a song in the same month is fine, even preferable.
  • Never choose songs that share the same tune in the same service.
  • Aim for musical variety. A weaker selection of songs would have all the singing in the same meter or mode. A stronger selection would vary these.
  • Be sensitive to significant aspects of our current congregational life, i.e. season of the year, shared trials or celebrations.
  • Add #409 after the reception of a new member.
  • Conclude with the Doxology in the morning and the Gloria Patri in the evening.
  • Use your memory, the table of contents, indices, and advanced search at Hymnary.org to help you find hymns. Also the digital versions of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal are useful.