What "Let Them In" means
"Let Them In" is a worship and prophetic song from Lecrae that frames the call to welcome the stranger through the lens of Matthew 25 and the church's responsibility to the vulnerable at the margins. Lecrae brings his hip-hop artist background to material that sits at the intersection of lament, compassion, and commission, asking whether the church will be the kind of community that opens its doors when it is costly. Most teams play it in the key of C at around 84 BPM, a measured mid-tempo that gives the lyric space to breathe and land. The theological root is the teaching of Jesus that how the church receives the stranger, the hungry, and the imprisoned is inseparable from how it receives him. That frame makes this less a social-cause song and more a christological one. It is worth understanding that distinction before you decide how to use it.
What this song does in a room
Put this song on a morning when your congregation has just heard the Matthew 25 sermon, or right after a missions report, or after the announcement about the refugee resettlement program your church is considering. The room will either lean in or sit still in a way that tells you something. Either response is pastoral information. This is a song that surfaces commitment and discomfort at the same time, which is what the best prophetic worship does. When the chorus lands, some people will sing it like a prayer and mean every word. Others will sing it and realize partway through that they have not yet decided what they actually believe about the border, the shelter, the neighbor down the street. Let that tension be present. Your job as the leader is not to resolve it for them before they have had a chance to sit with it.
What this song is saying about God
The song claims that God is decisively present in the face of the vulnerable, and that the church's posture toward those outside its walls is a form of worship or a failure of it. That is Matthew 25:40 carried into a musical frame: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." The lyric does not argue for a political position. It argues for a theological one: that the Jesus who welcomed sinners, ate with tax collectors, and crossed every social boundary in first-century Palestine is the same Jesus whose presence is encountered in the face of the stranger today.
The song also carries the weight of Leviticus 19:34: "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt." That text is the Old Testament ground under the New Testament call. The cross-religion test here: a person of another faith could sing a welcome-the-stranger song and mean it in generic humanitarian terms. What makes this song distinctly Christian is the christological framing. Welcoming the stranger is encountering Jesus. That is a claim no other tradition makes in the same way.
Scriptural backbone
Matthew 25:35-40 is the primary text: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in... Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." This is the theological hinge the whole song turns on. Leviticus 19:33-34 grounds it in the covenant history. Hebrews 13:2 adds the early church dimension: "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."
How to use it in a service
This song belongs in the response and commission movements of the service, not as an opener. It assumes the congregation has already been in the presence of God and is now being asked what that presence requires of them in the week ahead. Set it after the sermon when the text has been Matthew 25, or as the final song before the sending. It can also anchor a service that is specifically focused on the church's engagement with immigration, refugee resettlement, or community welcome programs.
Avoid placing it early in the set before the congregation has been moved through recognition and encounter. If people sing "let them in" before they have had any sense of their own need and God's welcome of them, it can feel like a social-cause lyric rather than a theological response. The song earns its power in context.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
The lyric is specific and direct. Do not soft-pedal it with a vague introduction that makes it sound like it is about something abstract. Name what it is about. That pastoral courage is part of what allows the room to receive it as worship rather than a TED talk. At the same time, frame the song as an invitation, not an accusation. The congregation is being asked to consider something, not indicted for what they have not yet done.
Watch the tempo. At 84 BPM in 4/4, the song should feel like a deliberate walk, not a shuffle. If your band lets the groove get too relaxed, the lyric loses its edge. If it gets too driven, it loses the pastoral room the text needs. Find the center and hold it.
Key of C is accessible for most congregations. No significant range concerns for the melody. The lyric density is higher than average, so invest in the words-on-screen slide build before service day.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
Guitarists: a clean, open voicing rather than heavy drive is right for this song. The lyric is doing the work. The arrangement should not compete with it. Acoustic with light electric layering underneath works well.
For in-ear mixes: make sure the click is present and the vocal is centered and clear. The worship leader needs to hear the lyric above everything else in their mix to deliver it with the weight it requires.
FOH: vocals forward. This is a text-forward song. If the mix buries the lyric in mid-range guitar, the congregation will not be able to lock onto the words, and the song's theological work requires the words to land.
ProPresenter: build the lyric slides word-group by word-group if possible, not by full lines, on the denser phrases. Give the congregation a half-beat to see the phrase before they sing it. On the chorus, full lines work. The goal is comprehension, not just keeping up.