46 Songs From My Evangelical Years: 1980-2026

Just for fun, I thought I’d list my favourite song from each year since I committed my life to Christ in 1980. I only heard the vast majority of these songs over the last few years when I decided to familiarize myself with modern worship songs. For most of my evangelical life, I preferred the older hymns and distanced myself from anything “trendy” or “happy clappy” – but that’s my silly prejudice. I had so much respect for the older generation that I wanted to model myself on them. But many of them were pleased to see younger people finding their own way to worship. When I read the lyrics of the new songs, I am pleased with them, and I don’t think that we should fight over music styles. God looks at our hearts. I don’t see how He’d prefer men in suits singing 18th Century hymns 😀.

For secular pop songs, I used to be able to name the month and year of release of so many of them back in my younger days. For worship songs, I’d like to become more familiar with the artists and with their year of release. So, here’s a list of sings that I recognize. Maybe I should quiz myself on their year of release. I’d like to get to the stage when I’m a bit of an expert on both new hymns and the older ones. I’ve hyperlinked each song to a YouTube video: