The songs about God as Father that churches used most in October 2026 are O Come to the Altar, Who You Say I Am and Good Good Father, ranked on CCLI's US and UK Top 100 lists. The Father hymns kept in the most hymn books are Come, Thou Almighty King, Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.
The lists are below, ranked by numbers anyone can check, with the verse each song leans on. After them comes the question underneath all of it: why Christians call God Father at all.
The results I read for "songs about God as Father" on 17 October 2026 mixed two different things: songs sung to God as Father, and Father's Day songs about dads. This page keeps them apart. It also keeps my own songs apart, further down. None of them is on either CCLI list that week, and ranking them among these would turn the page into an advert.
How these lists were made
I used three rules, so that anyone can rebuild the order, and kept my own songs out of the lists.
The test. A song counts only if its own lyric addresses God as Father or names him Father (or Abba, Baba or Daddy). Every candidate was checked against its lyric. A line that only lists Father, Son and Spirit together as three names does not count on its own, so a doxology is out unless the Father is also named by himself somewhere in the song. That rule removes How Great Is Our God, number 7 on the US list, whose only Father line is "Father, Spirit, Son". Reckless Love, which often appears on lists like this, never uses the word.
Where the Father comes in the song. Sixteen of the 136 songs on CCLI's US and UK Top 100 lists for the week of 5 October 2026 pass the test. In seven, the Father is in the title or the chorus: these are listed as songs about the Father. In the other nine, he comes in a verse, a bridge or an interlude: these are listed as songs that name the Father along the way.
One measure per list. Both CCLI lists are ranked by the average of each song's US and UK positions. CCLI builds its lists from activity on SongSelect, the service churches use for words and chords. A song missing from one country's list counts as 101 there, and a tie goes to the song with the better single position. The Father hymns I checked that are not on those lists are ranked by the number of hymnals that include them on Hymnary.org, read on 18 October 2026. No song appears in two lists. A year appears in a heading only where a source other than Wikipedia confirms it.
The approach is the one the journal used for the most powerful worship songs: other writers' songs first, ranked on evidence rather than taste.
Songs about the Father, most used in churches in October 2026
Seven songs with the Father in the title or the chorus, ranked by their average position on CCLI's US and UK lists for the week of 5 October 2026.
1O Come to the Altar · Elevation Worship
US 25, UK 40. Written by Chris Brown, Mack Brock, Steven Furtick and Wade Joye. The Father is in the chorus, as an invitation: "The Father's arms are open wide". The picture is the father in Luke 15:20, who saw his son "a great way off" and ran (KJV).
2Who You Say I Am · Hillsong Worship
US 38, UK 28. Written by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan. The chorus answers the question in the title with a house: "In my Father's house". That is John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many mansions" (KJV), and the song places the singer inside it.
3Good Good Father · Pat Barrett and Tony Brown
US 48, UK 56. CCLI lists the Housefires recording, on Housefires II. Chris Tomlin's version reached number 1 on Billboard's Christian Airplay chart in February 2016 (The M Collective). The whole song is built on one phrase, "You're a good, good Father", sung as a statement about who God is rather than a request. Its nearest scripture is Matthew 7:11: "how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (KJV).
4How Deep the Father's Love for Us · Stuart Townend (1995)
US 65, UK 48. Townend wrote it in 1995; the Hymnology Archive calls it his first hymn and says it was probably first sung at Church of Christ the King in Brighton, where he was worship leader. The credit is worth stating because it can slip: Bing's AI answer, read on 17 October 2026, credits the song to Austin Stone Worship. Its hardest line is about the Father at the cross, "The Father turns His face away", which stands on Jesus' cry in Matthew 27:46: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (KJV).
5The Lord Will Provide · Passion and Landon Wolfe (2024)
US 68, not in the UK list. Written by Brett Younker, Jess Cates and Chris Davenport, and announced on 2 February 2024 as the first song from Passion's Call on Heaven, out on 1 March 2024 (CCM Magazine). Its title is Genesis 22:14, where Abraham names the mountain "Jehovah-jireh" (KJV). Its refrain makes the Father the subject: "My Father has it", repeated until it sounds like Jesus in Matthew 6:32, "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (KJV).
6Run to the Father · Cody Carnes
US 74, not in the UK list. Written by Cody Carnes, Matt Maher and Ran Jackson. The title line is the prodigal son's decision, sung in the first person: "I run to the Father, I fall into grace". In Luke 15:18 the son says, "I will arise and go to my father" (KJV).
7This I Believe (The Creed) · Hillsong Worship
UK 79, not in the US list. Written by Ben Fielding and Matt Crocker. It sets the Apostles' Creed, and its chorus begins where the creed begins: "I believe in God our Father".
Songs that name the Father along the way, October 2026
Nine songs where the Father comes in a verse, a bridge or an interlude rather than the title or the chorus, ranked the same way.
1Goodness of God · Bethel Music and Jenn Johnson
Number 1 in the US and number 2 in the UK, the best average of any song on either CCLI list. Written by Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, Jason Ingram, Brian Johnson and Jenn Johnson. It names God as Father once, in a verse: "I've known You as a Father". The song is about God's goodness across a lifetime, and the Father line sits inside that.
2Who Else · Gateway Worship
US 11, UK 19. Written by Abbie Gamboa, Josiah Funderburk and Zac Rowe. The Father appears in the bridge: "You proved to us the Father's love".
3King of Kings · Hillsong Worship (2019)
US 45, UK 20, released as a single on 12 July 2019. Written by Brooke Ligertwood, Jason Ingram and Scott Ligertwood. The song tells the gospel story verse by verse. Its chorus praises Father, Son and Spirit together, which on its own would not pass the test; the third verse does, where the souls of all who come "to the Father are restored".
4Great Is Thy Faithfulness · Thomas Chisholm and William Runyan (1923)
US 41, UK 44, and in 255 hymnals on Hymnary.org (read 18 October 2026). Its first line names God "O God my Father", and Hymnary.org lists Lamentations 3 as its scripture: "his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22–23, KJV).
5No Longer Slaves · Bethel Music (2015)
US 72, UK 60. Written by Brian Johnson, Joel Case and Jonathan David Helser, and released on We Will Not Be Shaken in January 2015 (AllMusic). The song points to Romans 8:15, the Spirit of adoption "whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (KJV), and names the Father in its interlude: "By the arms of the Father".
6His Mercy Is More · Matt Papa and Matt Boswell
US 61, UK 98. Papa says a John Newton sermon lay behind it. It is written as a hymn, with verses and a refrain, and the Father comes in the second verse as the one calling the lost back: "What Father so tender is calling us home".
7Thank You Jesus for the Blood · Charity Gayle
US 63, not in the UK list. The Father comes in the bridge: "We are ransomed by our Father".
8We Plough the Fields and Scatter · Matthias Claudius (1782)
UK 72, not in the US list. A German harvest hymn in Jane Montgomery Campbell's English translation. Its third verse turns from the farm to God and thanks him as Father for "all things bright and good". Hymnary.org lists James 1:17 beside it, the verse about every good gift coming "down from the Father of lights" (KJV).
9Is He Worthy? · Andrew Peterson (2018)
US 94, not in the UK list. Written by Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive and released on Resurrection Letters, Vol. I in March 2018. It is a call and response drawn from Revelation 5, "Who is worthy to open the book?" (KJV), and one of its questions is the one this page is about: "Does the Father truly love us?" The congregation's answer is two words.
Kept in the most hymn books
These are the Father hymns I checked that are not on this month's CCLI lists, ranked by the number of hymnals that include them on Hymnary.org, read on 18 October 2026. The counts measure hymn books, not Sundays.
1Come, Thou Almighty King · anonymous (1757)
In 1,933 hymnals. Its verses address the Father, the Son and the Spirit in turn, which is why it passes the test: the first is a prayer to the Father by himself, "Father, all-glorious, o'er all victorious, come and reign over us".
2Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven · Henry Francis Lyte (1834)
In 595 hymnals. Lyte's version of Psalm 103. His line "Father-like he tends and spares us" paraphrases Psalm 103:13: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him" (KJV).
3Dear Lord and Father of Mankind · John Greenleaf Whittier (1872)
In 588 hymnals. A prayer for quiet, addressed to the Father in its first line, that ends on the "still small voice" of 1 Kings 19:12 (KJV): "O still, small voice of calm".
4Eternal Father, Strong to Save · William Whiting (1860)
In 468 hymnals. A prayer for sailors, built on Psalm 107:23, "They that go down to the sea in ships" (KJV), and asking the Father to hear "for those in peril on the sea".
5This Is My Father's World · Maltbie Babcock (1901)
In 401 hymnals. The hymn here most taken up with creation. Each verse opens with the title, and the last turns it into comfort: "This is my Father's world: why should my heart be sad?"
6Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee · Henry van Dyke (1907)
In 311 hymnals, usually sung to the tune Hymnary.org lists as HYMN TO JOY. Its third verse names the family in one line: "Thou our Father, Christ our brother".
7Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise · Walter Chalmers Smith (1867)
In 252 hymnals. The title is 1 Timothy 1:17. The Father line comes at the end, "Great Father of glory, pure Father of light", which is James 1:17 again: "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness" (KJV).
8Be Thou My Vision · Mary Byrne and Eleanor Hull
In 206 hymnals; Hymnary.org credits Byrne's translation and Hull's verse. One line holds the whole relationship: "Thou my great Father, I thy true son".
The short choruses of the 1970s and 1980s sit much lower. Father, I Adore You (Terrye Coelho, 1972) is in 61 hymnals; Dave Bilbrough's Abba, Father, Let Me Be is in 10; Ian Smale's Father God, I Wonder is in 10 in Hymnary.org's search listing, and is number 72 in the Methodist Church's Singing the Faith.
Which verses are these songs built on?
Where a hymnal names the verse, the table says so. The rest are my reading of where each Father line points.
| Song | Verse | What the verse says (KJV) |
|---|---|---|
| O Come to the Altar | Luke 15:20 | "his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran" |
| Who You Say I Am | John 14:2 | "In my Father's house are many mansions" |
| Good Good Father | Matthew 7:11 | "how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things" |
| How Deep the Father's Love for Us | Matthew 27:46 | "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" |
| The Lord Will Provide | Matthew 6:32 | "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need" |
| Run to the Father | Luke 15:18 | "I will arise and go to my father" |
| Great Is Thy Faithfulness | Lamentations 3:22–23 (named by Hymnary.org) | "his compassions fail not. They are new every morning" |
| No Longer Slaves | Romans 8:15 | "the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" |
| We Plough the Fields and Scatter | James 1:17 (named by Hymnary.org) | "cometh down from the Father of lights" |
| Is He Worthy? | Revelation 5:2 | "Who is worthy to open the book?" |
| Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven | Psalm 103:13 | "Like as a father pitieth his children" |
| Dear Lord and Father of Mankind | 1 Kings 19:12 | "a still small voice" |
| Eternal Father, Strong to Save | Psalm 107:23 | "They that go down to the sea in ships" |
| Immortal, Invisible | 1 Timothy 1:17; James 1:17 | "the King eternal, immortal, invisible"; "the Father of lights" |
Read down the middle column and a pattern shows. The newer songs mostly go to the Gospels, twice to Luke 15 and the father who runs. The older hymns go to the Psalms and the letters, to a Father who keeps the world and the sea.
Why do Christians call God Father?
Because Jesus did, and taught his followers to. The Old Testament calls God Father rarely. The New Testament scholar Robert Stein counts 15 uses there, against about 165 in the four Gospels, more than 100 of them in John (BiblicalTraining.org lecture, read 18 October 2026). When the Old Testament does use the word, it is usually of God and the whole people:
Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
Deuteronomy 32:6 (KJV)
Psalm 68:5 calls him "a father of the fatherless", and the next verse says he "setteth the solitary in families" (KJV), the verse I put in my own words in a 2017 essay on loneliness: "he plants the lonely in a family".
Stein adds that the Old Testament never addresses God as Father in prayer. That needs care, because Isaiah's prayer comes close twice:
Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.
Isaiah 63:16 (KJV)
And again at Isaiah 64:8: "But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter" (KJV). Those words are spoken to God. Counts like Stein's depend on what is being counted. Marianne Meye Thompson, in one reviewer's summary of her book The Promise of the Father (2000), argues that the idea of God as Father runs through the Old Testament far more often than the word does.
What changes with Jesus is the way people speak to God. He teaches his disciples to begin "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9, KJV). In Gethsemane, Mark keeps the Aramaic word he prayed:
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
Mark 14:36 (KJV)
Paul says the same word is now given to believers by the Spirit (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). After the resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father" (John 20:17, KJV). The relationship is handed on.
How much the word Abba tells us is argued over. Joachim Jeremias, in The Prayers of Jesus (1967), read it as the mark of a unique closeness. In the same reviewer's summary, Thompson notes that it appears only once in the Gospels and doubts it can carry that weight. A later essay on this journal takes up Abba on its own.
Is a Father's Day song a song about God as Father?
Usually not. The results I read on 17 October 2026 put Father's Day lists, songs to honour dads, beside worship songs addressed to God. Both have their place. They answer different questions, and on Father's Day itself (20 June 2027) a church is singing to people for whom the first kind is easy and people for whom it is hard. A service can hold both.
Songs from one songwriter's catalogue
I have been writing about God as Father since about 2000, when I wrote Padre. Eleven of the 21 songs on this site in October 2026 name him Father in the lyric. None of them is on CCLI's US or UK Top 100 for the week of 5 October 2026, which is why they sit here and not in the lists above. Eleven of the twelve songs in the table pass the same test; Home is there for its verse only. The verse beside each is the one listed in that song's own notes on this site.
| Song | Released | Verse in its notes | The Father line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Padre | 2 November 2018 | Psalm 68:5 | "Baba mi o" (Yoruba: oh my Father) |
| Dance for Love | 2 November 2018 | Zephaniah 3:17 | "The Father is in love with you" |
| Great Titles | 2 November 2018 | Exodus 3:14 | "But I call you Daddy" |
| My Hosanna | 2 November 2018 | Psalm 118:25 | "Praise the Father" |
| Voice The Sound | 2 November 2018 | Psalm 29:4 | "The voice of the Father is mighty" |
| Through | 2 November 2018 | Psalm 68:5 | "Father me with a smile" |
| Prodigal Father | 2 November 2018 | Luke 15:20; Romans 8:15 | "Abba, You're beautiful" |
| Face to Face | February 2025 | John 14:9 | "I see the Father" |
| New | February 2025 | Revelation 21:1 | "Here in my Father's Kingdom" |
| YHWH | March 2025 | Exodus 3:14 | "I love to call you Daddy" |
| Our Father | 25 April 2025 | Matthew 6:9–13 | "Our Father who art in heaven" |
| Home | 10 November 2023 | Isaiah 9:6 | none; the verse itself names him "The everlasting Father" |
Seven of the eight songs on my 2018 album Father name him in the lyric. The one that does not is called Son. Home is in the table for its verse, not its words. The story behind Padre, and behind the album, is on the Padre page, told the way I want it told.
One song by another writer belongs here. Graham Kendrick's O Father of the Fatherless (Father me), © 1992 Make Way Music, opens with Psalm 68:5, the verse under Padre and Through. It is in only two hymnals on Hymnary.org, so it does not make the list above, but for me it is "one of the songs that helped shape my journey". My cover of it, Father Me (cover) and spontaneous worship, went up on YouTube on 10 July 2020, with Goz Iam as musical director and the studio work by Bamm-Bamm Music. It is Kendrick's song, so it is not free to download here. Through, released in 2018, uses the same verb: "Father me with a smile".
These are songs written mostly for one listener rather than a room, which is a different job from a congregational song, and I have written about that difference.
A note on Baba. Baba is Yoruba for father (the Padre notes on this site). Becca Folkes wrote the single Baba, released on 13 March 2020. It is mostly in English and calls God Baba: "Baba, Baba, how I love you so". I recommend it rather than rank it. It is one I have enjoyed recently, among many.
Our Father
Our Father is the Lord's Prayer as techno house, released on 25 April 2025 with the YHWH EP. Most of the lyric is Matthew 6:9–13, with Isaiah 64:8, the potter and the clay, and 1 Chronicles 29:11 woven in. The note I wrote for it says in one sentence what this page has been circling: "Heavenly Father is not a deadbeat father."
Free downloadMP33:58
Our Father
The Lord’s Prayer as techno house, and the note he wrote about it contains the plainest statement of what this entire catalogue is for.
No email, no account, no catch. Yours to keep, and yours to play to a congregation.
A prayer
Our Father which art in heaven (Matthew 6:9, KJV), we come because your Son taught us to. Some of us come with a good father in mind, and some of us with none, and you know both. Thank you for the word Paul gave us: "ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15, KJV). And thank you for the psalm: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him" (Psalm 103:13, KJV). Have compassion on us now, the tired and the far from home. Be near. Be our Father. In Jesus' name, amen.
Sources
The lists
- CCLI Top 100, United States, week of 5 October 2026, CCLI SongSelect, read 18 October 2026, for positions and writer credits
- CCLI Top 100, United Kingdom, week of 5 October 2026, CCLI SongSelect, read 18 October 2026
- Hymnary.org text pages, read 18 October 2026, for hymnal counts, authors and dates: Come, Thou Almighty King, Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, Eternal Father, Strong to Save, This Is My Father's World, Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise, Be Thou My Vision, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Father, I Adore You, Abba, Father, Let Me Be, O Father of the Fatherless (Father me), and We Plough the Fields and Scatter
- Father God, I wonder (StF 72), The Methodist Church in Britain
The songs
- How Deep the Father's Love for Us, Hymnology Archive, undated, read 18 October 2026
- Bing search, "songs about god as father", UK market, AI answer read 17 October 2026, for the Austin Stone credit
- Chris Tomlin's "Good Good Father" hits No. 1 on Billboard Christian Airplay, The M Collective, 24 February 2016
- We Will Not Be Shaken, AllMusic, for the release of No Longer Slaves
- Hillsong Worship releases new single "King of Kings", CCM Magazine, 12 July 2019
- Passion announces new live album with new song, CCM Magazine, 2 February 2024, for The Lord Will Provide
- Andrew Peterson releases Resurrection Letters, Louder Than The Music, 11 February 2018, for Is He Worthy?
- His Mercy Is More, Matt Papa, undated, read 18 October 2026
- We plough the fields, and scatter, Choral Public Domain Library, for Jane Montgomery Campbell's translation
- Baba, Becca Folkes, Apple Music, 13 March 2020; Spotify song credits (Rebecca Folkes as composer, lyricist and songwriter), read 19 October 2026
- Lyrics: Good Good Father, Worship Together (the publisher's song page), read 19 October 2026. SongSelect's lyric pages need a church licence login, so the other modern lyrics were checked on Genius lyric pages on 18 October 2026, as a fallback. One line at most is quoted from any song still in copyright
Scripture and scholarship
- Scripture quotations are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown's patentee, Cambridge University Press.
- The Fatherhood of God, Robert Stein, New Testament Survey: Gospels, lesson 18, BiblicalTraining.org, undated lecture, read 18 October 2026, for the counts
- Marianne Meye Thompson, The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Westminster John Knox, 2000), cited from Phil Gons's review, not from the book itself
- Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (SCM, 1967)
Yemi Alafifuni
- Father Me (cover) and spontaneous worship, YouTube, 10 July 2020
- Song notes, verses and lyrics: the song pages on this site, from Padre to Our Father