Writing your own songs is not a life or death issue for your worship team.
You don’t need it to be successful. It’s quite OK to sing the great songs of worship leaders like Matt Redman, Paul Baloche, Tim Hughes, Israel Houghton, Kari Jobe, and others.
The presence of God can still be present in your gatherings and the favor of God can still fill your ministry.
But I think you should give songwriting a try. And, I think you should consider hosting a songwriting retreat with some members of your worship team.
As you read this, I am currently at a songwriting retreat with my worship team. We are at a local retreat center here in Pittsburgh for a day and a half of intense writing. In a future post I’ll outline what happened.
But for now, I want to give you 6 reasons why you should try one for yourself.
1. To Foster Creativity
If you wait for inspiration, you may never write a song. Songwriting is hard work and you need to put in the work if you’re going to write great songs that serve your church. With that being said, there’s nothing wrong with boosting your team’s creativity once in a while. I’ll never forget Mark Batterson’s axiom: Change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. Getting away for a songwriting retreat is a way to flex your creative muscle. It removes your team from the predictable norm and places you in a context for inspiration.
2. To Collaborate
I believe the best songs are written in collaboration. Every writer has their strength, whether it’s melody, harmony, lyrics, or arrangement. It can be difficult to agree on ideas but that very tension results in stronger songs. Collaboration also fosters a team mentality in your songwriting. This isn’t about one person and their songwriting gift. It’s about a collective of musicians and singers working together to serve their church. That’s a beautiful thing.
3. To Voice What God is Doing
Like I said, writing your own songs is not necessary. But I think it’s important because it forces you and your team to be proactive, rather than reactive. Rather than saying, “what new hit songs are being written by Hillsong, Jesus Culture, & Planetshakers,” you start asking, “what is God speaking to our community of faith?”
It forces you to engage with your pastor’s sermons, you church’s mission, and your congregation’s need.
4. To Serve the Church
There’s a lot of debate surrounding worship songwriting because a lot of guys make their living off of the worship songs they write. There almost seems to be this underlying motivation to write great songs for money. I’m not arguing that it’s wrong. I’m saying you shouldn’t write with this motivation.
Particularly with a local church worship team, write to serve YOUR church. Don’t think about making the top 10 in CCLI. Think about how you can give voice to your congregation. Think about how you can lead them in the truth you’re learning as a local body. Pray for them. Love them. Write songs for them that will change their lives. Resourcing the wider body of Christ may overflow from that, or it may not. Success isn’t defined by royalty checks but by engaged worshipers in your congregation.
5. To Strengthen Your Team
There’s something about getting away that changes people. Remember going to youth camp? I’ll bet my top dollar you encountered God there. I’ll bet even more that you made new friends and had an absolute blast. Getting away for a night in a new place will connect your team in a way that months of worship team rehearsals will never do. And it’s always better to do ministry with people you love.
6. To Raise Up New Songwriters
There are members of your worship team who are telling themselves they can’t write songs. They’re just a drummer, or they’re just a singer, or they’re just…blah, blah blah. Songwriting is an acquired skill. You don’t just wake up awesome at it. Invite team members who haven’t written a song before. Empower them to share their ideas and offer their input. It may be just what they need.
Question: Do you write songs for your local church? In what ways have you brought your worship team together to write? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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Great stuff once again David! I do write songs for my church…Not all but most of the songs came from sermons my pastor preached or just the “state of mind” of our church if that makes any since…
I can honestly say it has been a long time since I have written a song with my worship team…I wrote most of my songs before I had the band…
This is really encouraging! I never thought of it like that! I can say for our next album (God willing) it will be a collaborative album with my band!!! Thanks!!!
It also takes the pressure off!!! lol!!!
Yea, man, it will really grow and mature your team to have them write. It was some incredible bonding for us as well.
Faith communities connect and engage at a deeper level with songs custom tailored for them. It just fits better. Like a tailor made suit.
True. Have you done something like this Jerret?
Great post, David. Got some questions though…
Sorry the interrogation here, but I have a few questions.
How did you organize your retreat? How many team members did you have on the retreat? Do you possibly have a copy of your agenda?
I have hosted writers nights at our church, but never have thought about writing as a whole with my team.
What an awesome way to grow deeper as a team and express what God is speaking to our local church.
Thanks for the post!
Joe, there were 10 of us on the retreat. I didn’t invite my whole team but just the ones I saw with the most songwriting potential. We started off just having fun and laughing together. That’s important because co-writing is a vulnerable thing and people need to feel comfortable around each other. Then we did about 5 or 6 sessions of songwriting with a variety of focuses, which I will blog on soon. I think the key is to have people write with a time limit and then immediately return, share, and record the ideas. Watch for the new post soon. Hope that helps!
Bro, I’m in the midst of thinking through a songwriting retreat for our team. I am anxiously waiting to see your outline and breakdown for how you did yours.
(Just picture me sitting on my computer clicking the “refresh page” button over and over again.)
Love your blog!
Roger, did you catch this post? https://www.davidsantistevan.com/2011/05/co-songwriting/
This basically outlines what we did on our retreat. Let me know if that helps!
You are awesome in this place.
Lol. That was awesome.
I am so inspired! Just started looking up some venues for a retreat.
Our church has been displaced due to the Christchurch earthquake, and man there is some heavy stuff going on in people’s lives and families as a result of this ongoing tragedy. I think that NOW, more than ever before, is when we need to be writing songs that reflect our church’s journey as well as speak prophetically into the future bringing hope.
Even though we serve the same God, the journey of our community will look very different to Hillsong or Bethel. It’s so tempting just to use all their songs (‘cos I really like their stuff!) but those songs have come out of THEIR journey as a church and that’s partly why I think they are great. They are honest, authentic and come out of a deep intimacy with Jesus.
Instead of ‘jumping on the bandwagon,’ let’s commit as worship teams to make JESUS our starting point when it comes to choosing songs (not Praisecharts.com or Songselect etc). Imagine what will flow out as His presence is poured into us! Soak it up people!
Rachel
P.S. I am very good at ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ when it comes to the latest songs etc so I’m writing this to encourage myself as well 🙂
Rachel, let me know how the retreat plans go! It is so worth it.
I think it’s still healthy to use anointed songs that God is birthing elsewhere, but you’re right, it’s so important to voice what God is doing in your church.
Where is that picture from?
Vieques Island. I’m not sure where that’s at 🙂
Oh thank you! I will look it up. Looks like a great spot indeed!