Would I get sued if I sing the song "Come Now Is the Time To Worship"?

Answer 1

If you or anyone is earning money from the performance, then you definitely need permission. If it's during service, then that is a little more tricky. Will recordings be made? Will they be sold or given away?
With the amount of churches in this country, doing 'pop' music in every service, I can't imagine there are any people pursuing copyright infringements as long as no money is being exchanged.

Answer 2

IT depends when the song was written. If the author, or authors have dead for at least seventy years, then the song is in the public domain. If the music that you are using has a copyright title (towards the bottom) that should give you a clue. The only other question is whether the song is ap-propriate for the venue you are singing it in. If you are singing in a government owned facility that is bound by seperation of church and state, you may be asked not to perform that song. This isn't because the individual has anything against the song personally, but if they allow overtly Christian songs to be sung, they have to allow every other religion to perform there too.

I am not trying to put down any other religion here. If you can imagine every major religion of the world being represented during every public event, the sheer time it would take to acknowledge them means that you not get much of anything else done. Then you may have to deal with a couple that have conflicts with each other. On top of that, some religions have purification ceremonies and rituals that are definately provocative in nature. After all of that is done, you have to allow for the Agnostics and Atheists to get some respect as well. You can see how it might get a bit complicated.

The standard response to an argument like this is that the founding fathers were all Christians, but many of the founding fathers were actually deists. They deliberately set up the Constitution so that people could have freedom, not only to worship the way that they chose, but also freedom not to worship if they chose. Of course, as long as everyone in your community is in agreement about this, you have no problem. If there was no problem, you wouldn't be asking this question however. It all comes down to a case of mutual respect. As long as we have it for each other, there isn't really anything we can't do, in it's proper time and place.

Answer 3

Probably not if you are singing it in church or at a church related event. Enjoy singing the song.