The first song in the genre was in 1955 Seigneur, mon ami by Père Duval who performed his religious chansons at the Protestant church assembly Kirchentag in 1962.

Christoph Kießig of a Berlin band noted: "Das NGL ist eine der wenigen Stellen, an denen Jugendliche und Erwachsene nicht nur konsumieren."

)[1] René Frank [de] wrote in 2003 that only songs that congregations like to sing in services are truly NGL ("Denn nur was sich bewährt, bleibt in den Gemeinden lebenden und wird als Neues Geistliches Lied praktiziert.").

Josef Mittermair published in 1979 the collection Das Lob (Praise), which tried to represent the bandwidth of spirituals with German texts, chansons by Maurice Cocagnac, Duval, Alfred Flury and Sœur Sourire, the Gen Rosso [de] mass, the Tiroler Jugend- und Kindermessen by Raimund Kreidl, and the mass for children Pfälzer Kindermesse by Hartmut Wortmann [de].

[9] Members have included Horst Christill, Patrick Dehm, Eugen Eckert, Dietmar Fischenich, Winfried Heurich, Joachim Raabe and Peter Reulein.