Ancient Future: A Playlist

Before leaving our series, I want to give you one more way to enjoy these early songs and prayers, alongside some other favorites. You see, part of what makes these songs so great is that their truths echo across the centuries, and reflect the light of Christ toward us from new angles and with new applications. Setting these songs alongside other classic and contemporary hymns allows us to extend the wisdom of the ages to our situation today. Remember, the gospel is both ancient and timeless—it doesn’t grow old. Like Christ himself said, “every writer who has been discipled for the kingdom of the heavens is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13:52).

The question then becomes, Which songs make the cut? Well, there’s definitely more than one way to do it, but here’s what I settled on.

1. ​I started with the same core of songs we covered in this series, rounding it out with a few others from the project Praying Together (1988) from the English Language Liturgical Consultation. Their link to the document is currently broken, but in case they fix it, here it is. This included 13 songs.
2. Next, I needed to find a nice core of classic hymns about the same size. I started with the 15 Most Popular Hymns from Hymnary.org. Later (after steps 3 and 4), I decided to cross-check these songs against a list of 27 “Hymns That Last” selected by Christianity Today, just to even things out a bit.
3. For the contemporary selections, I took a look at the first 20 songs on SongSelect from Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), sorting the songs by their CCLI Rank.
4. I built the playlist on Apple Music, so I decided to limit my arrangements to three acapella groups available there: Hallal Music, the ZOE Group, and The Acapella Company’s Praise and Harmony series. This did, however, mean that I didn't always find a good arrangement of every song. For more on acapella music in the Early Church, check out Everett Ferguson’s Early Christians Speak.
5. Final caveat: Since this is also one of our living, family playlists (especially to and from worship with the church) we’re always adding or subtracting a few wildcards from time to time, like when new albums come out.

Currently, this gives us 42 songs, with 2 hours and 4 minutes of great acapella music you can take with you anywhere. Here’s the link. So which songs are you surprised made the list? Which ones are you surprised didn’t? How would you have done it differently?

​However you answer those questions, just remember that when we sing, it’s not about a particular list of songs. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col 3:16). Wisdom and Grace—that’s our goal. So let these songs speak the word of Christ to your heart, and find your joy bringing glory to God alongside his people.