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Every year, we offer our list of the year's 12 most impressive worship albums, calling attention to music we believe will most bless the church and draw hearts closer to God. Our annual list remains unranked (listed alphabetically by artist's last name) to avoid implying that one form of worship is better than another. The finalists are typically selected based on creativity and originality as it relates to encouraging Christians to worship their Creator—through song or private contemplation.

But this year, many worship albums were concerned less with original songwriting and more with spirited presentation. The year included more than a dozen albums featuring new arrangements of old hymns, as well as recordings that reworked familiar worship standards with new energy and inspiration. These CDs reflect a growing tendency toward "blended worship" in the church, crossing generational, denominational and style-of-music barriers to bring together the worshiping body of Christ.

Ashley Cleveland (Rambler Records)

The first of this year's parade of hymn projects comes from one of Christian music's most highly regarded yet vastly underrated artists. Ashley Cleveland generally doesn't over-contemporize these hymns, nor does she keep them too traditional and dry. The album succeeds because it sounds fresh while remaining true to the spirit and melody of the source material. Cleveland's signature vocal, drenched in passion and grit, carries over arrangements performed in her comfortable mix of roots rock, blues, and folk. Many of this year's hymns albums share similarities, but there are subtle differences to their source of inspiration. In Cleveland's case, she's drawn to the unifying power of hymns and the way they bring everyone in a room to attention. There's power to the songs of old, and these heartfelt renditions are indeed proof of that.

Travis Cottrell (Hosanna!/Integrity)

Alive Forever is the perfect example of how to do "blended worship" right. There are few originals here, but the album's strength is its mix of styles and traditions, ranging from modern worship, traditional hymns, gospel, orchestrated choir pieces—all beautifully balanced without letting it get too wild or stale. You get the impression that nothing is routine at Cottrell's church; the phrase that's not how we usually do it doesn't apply. Despite the choir and orchestra, it's an example of what an average worship team can do to energize their church's music program. While song quality and originality are certainly important qualities in offering praise to God, worshiping with sincerity and excellence matters even more.

David Crowder Band (sixsteps/EMI)

The most original worship album since … well, let's just say A Collision deserves to join a short list of pivotal worship albums that includes Delirious' Cutting Edge, Sonicflood's self-titled debut, and the City on a Hill series. This epic album blends pop and rock worship conventions with glimpses of alt-folk, bluegrass, and gospel spiritual. Wildly ambitious, intriguingly varied, melodically infectious, lyrically reverent, and remarkably thought-provoking, it's hard to determine whether or not David Crowder Band is trying to be as idiosyncratic and stimulating as they seem, or if they're simply expressing love to their Creator the best way they know how. Probably both, but one thing is certain: A Collision rewrites the rules for creativity in worship, and should thus be commended for it. No, it's not really designed for a corporate worship setting, but you've most likely never heard an artistic expression of worship as inventive as this.

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