When I took upon myself to find those ten praise songs that expemplified the “cream of the crop”, I went about it quite methodically. After trying many different approaches in the last few years, I’ve settled on results that contained three elements: songs that had been added to the most churches between the two survey periods, excluding the exceptions (e.g. Christmas songs, among other reasons), and were ordered by rank (preferably above the survey median*).

*The survey median–in this case, was #182–represents the midpoint of all survey responses. Of the approx 5.8 million credits that were tallied, about half of these went to the top 182 songs. The second half went to thousands upon thousands of other songs.)

However, upon closer scrutiny of this “cream of the crop” list, there are other Top Ten Lists that can be shared. This list is another approach to finding buzzworthy praise songs.

SONGS THAT REACHED THEIR HIGHEST RANKS YET

This is a list of ten songs that all performed personal bests, above the survey median (but increased usage ranked lower than the first list).  Like the tortoise and the hare, these songs have grown their usages slowly, at least more slowly than those profiled in Podcast 11.   These songs have been released for a while longer, so they may be somewhat familiar.  But did you know to what extent they were being used?

20. “Jesus Saves” by Nick Herbert and Tim Hughes (up 154 credits to Rank #174) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26-uzrVceH0 ]

19. “Center” by Charlie Hall and Matt Redman (up 1049 credits to Rank #163) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUwRX2HPLKY ]

18. “Awakening” by Chris Tomlin and Reuben Morgan (up 560 credits to Rank #147) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpdXvs_Hac ]

17. “Overcome” by Jon Egan (up 1078 credits to Rank #143) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sjYWrpNoCs ]

16. “Come Thou Fount Come Thou King” by Thomas Miller and Robert Robinson (up 293 credits to Rank #139) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhd5dUVxOJ8 ]

15. “Waiting Here For You” by Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, and Martin Smith (up 2957 credits to Rank #136)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3OEGnH5x8g ]

14. “Beautiful Things” by Michael & Lisa Gungor (up 2299 credits to Rank #131) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqy1a_Gz0zQ ]

13. “I Lift My Hands” by Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio, and Matt Maher (up 2909 credits to Rank #109) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI0BP9IIGy4 ]

12. “You Alone Can Rescue” by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin (up 936 credits to Rank #102) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrkY-iP3G64 ]

11. “Our God Saves” by Paul Baloche and Brenton Brown (up 748 credits to Rank #61) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3INVZuruRE ]

Related links:  Prayer Meeting Podcast 011: The Top Ten Buzzworthy Praise and Worship Songs Aug 2012