The biblical Psalms have carried the prayers of God's people for centuries — praise and lament, confession and hope, grief and glory.
Across the generations, Christians have continued to write songs that function psalmically: sung in worship, whispered in suffering, carried into funerals and revivals, translated across cultures, and remembered long after their first moment has passed.
This project is a crowd-sourced, carefully curated attempt to gather 150 such songs — not as Scripture, but as a living collection of the hymns, worship songs, spiritual songs, and sacred songs that have carried the Church.
We are not adding to the biblical Psalms, and this is not a new canon. We are asking which songs have carried the Church since — and listening, together, for the answer. Read more →
If we had to choose only 150 songs from the last few centuries of Christian worship — the ones that have most deeply carried the Church across generations, denominations, and cultures — which would they be? Nobody should answer that question alone. So we're asking everybody.
We begin with 150 proposed songs, selected from evidence of reach, endurance, and use. The list is not final. It will change as people vote, nominate, and help us see what the global Church actually sings.
Votes matter, but this is not only a popularity contest. The final collection will also consider theological depth, psalmic range, cross-cultural reach, durability, singability, and rights feasibility.
Two buttons, two questions. I vote for this says the song belongs in the conversation; I sing this in my church tells us it is alive in congregational use today. Every song links to YouTube and Spotify so you can listen before you decide. Counts shown are prototype demo data.
The biblical Psalter is not 150 songs of praise — roughly a third of it is lament. A collection that claims psalmic character must hold the whole range of prayer. Every song is tagged against sixteen categories, and the final 150 will be balanced across them, with the balance rules published before selection. A pure vote would over-select anthems and under-select lament, confession, justice, grief, and wisdom. The map keeps us honest.
The guiding question: has this song carried worship across time, communities, and conditions — and can it continue to do so? Four kinds of evidence, weighed together and published in full. No single number decides. The vote shapes the list; it does not replace discernment — and wherever the final collection departs from the vote, we will explain why.
Hymnal inclusion, usage data, translations, denominational and regional adoption, years in use — era-normalised so new songs and old hymns are each judged fairly against their own generation.
Verified public voting, transparent counts, lightly weighted by region so no one country dominates. Raw results always published.
An advisory circle of scholars, pastors, liturgists, and global church leaders reviews for biblical resonance, theological depth, psalmic range, and singability. Their notes are published.
Copyright and licensing, listening links, translation availability. Being under copyright never excludes a song — it shapes how we can share it.
Nominate a hymn, worship song, spiritual song, or sacred song that has carried your community. Tell us where it comes from, who sings it, and why it deserves to be remembered. Please include a listening link so others can hear and evaluate it. Every nomination is reviewed before it appears publicly. If approved, your song joins the public nominations — and we'll email you its link so your community can hear it and vote.
Thank you.
Your nomination has been received and will be reviewed within 14 days. If approved, it joins the living list — and the conversation.
No. The biblical Psalms are Scripture. This project is not adding to Scripture and does not claim authority over the Church.
The phrase "new psalms" refers to songs that function psalmically in Christian life today — songs of praise, lament, confession, trust, thanksgiving, justice, and hope. The aim is to gather a living collection of songs Christians have written and sung since the biblical Psalms, not to create a new canon.
The biblical Book of Psalms contains 150 psalms. The number gives the project a poetic shape and a discipline. It forces the question: if we had to choose only 150 songs from the last few centuries of Christian worship, which ones have most deeply carried the Church?
Because the available evidence is strongest there: hymnals, usage charts, publishing records, and congregational data. But the aspiration is global. Later phases invite nominations from every language and region, with translations and regional partners helping the project listen more widely. We would rather be honest about a limited starting point than pretend to a global reach we have not yet earned.
You may vote for as many songs as you love — one vote per song. Votes are verified, logged in an auditable ledger, and published transparently. Raw counts are always shown, alongside regional views so no one country's turnout drowns out the rest.
And the vote shapes the list; it does not decide it alone. The final collection combines research evidence, the global vote, discernment review, and feasibility — which makes mobilised vote campaigns much less decisive than they would be in a pure popularity contest.
No single person. An advisory circle — hymnologists, worship practitioners, theologians, liturgists, and church leaders from across traditions and continents, all publicly named — reviews the shortlist against published criteria. The founder convenes the process but does not score songs or hold a vote. Wherever the final collection departs from the public vote, the reasoning is published.
Yes. Reach is judged era-normalised — a recent song is compared with its own generation, not with hymns that have had two centuries to travel. A young song with wide, deep, cross-cultural use can absolutely earn its place, though endurance still counts in its favour.
Carefully. We do not publish full lyrics unless a song is public domain or properly licensed. We link to official recordings, quote briefly only where lawful, and track rights status for every song. Copyright never excludes a song from the collection — it only shapes how we can present it.
A song that does what the Psalms do: praise, lament, thanksgiving, confession, trust, wisdom, justice, pilgrimage, creation wonder, kingdom hope, remembrance, or eschatological hope — and that real communities can actually sing or pray. See the Psalm Map above.
Three ways: vote for the songs that have carried your congregation, use the "I sing this in my church" button to show us what is alive in your worship today, and nominate the songs we have missed — especially with the stories behind them. Sharing the project with your worship leader or music team is the single most helpful thing you can do.