It’s not that your worship songs aren’t catchy enough.
It’s not that they need more lyrics, better arrangements, and slicker production.
It’s the fact that they’re not saying anything.
Your lyrics are dry. They were written in 5 minutes after you stumbled on an incredible melody.
The only problem with this approach is that it’s just noise. And it doesn’t serve the church well.
Stop Writing Songs…Instead, Do This
The other day I was listening to an interview with Passion founder, Louie Giglio. In it he made a stark observation about songwriting.
He was talking about Chris Tomlin and his ability to keep cranking out fantastic worship songs. “How do you top ‘How Great Is Our God?’ or ‘Our God?'” he asked.
He simply answered his question: “Songs don’t come from you…they come through you.”
At first, I was mystified and annoyed.
OK, let’s not get super spiritual and say songs don’t come from us. We need to put in the work to make great songs. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew Louie was right, even though I didn’t want to believe it.
Worship songwriting is more about listening than it is working.
It’s more about connecting with God than it is studying a craft.
Don’t get me wrong – worship songwriting is still blood, sweat, and tears. You must work at it.
But it’s much more about how we position our lives.
God has a song that he wants to sing. He’s just looking for a vessel who’s ready – a person who is listening.
As songwriters we need to identify what is on God’s heart.
God, what are you saying to your people?
God, what are you saying to me?
God, what is on your heart?
Too often we resort to quick cliches and mesh them with catchy melodies.
Positioning yourself to hear God is about the contexts you allow yourself to be in. If your only influence is pop radio, you may have great melodies, but yawning lyrics.
You need better contexts in order to hear what God is saying.
5 Songwriting Contexts You Need
Here we go:
1. His Presence – If you want to write powerful worship songs, you need to get in His presence. Worship songwriting isn’t just a matter of finding the time and being creative. It’s about being transformed by God.
2. His Church – Worship songwriting can never be divorced from the local church. It can never be isolated from living in community with broken, hurting, beautiful people. Stay connected and keep serving.
3. His Word – This may be most important. Your worship lyrics should reflect a mind that is fixed upon truth. Your lyrics should reveal that you spend time pouring over Scripture. In all honesty, you want His words…not your own.
4. His Mission – It’s difficult to write great worship songs if you’re standing still – avoiding mission. The best songs will arise when you are living in community, reaching out to a broken world.
5. His Quiet – Endless noise surrounds us, which doesn’t help our ability to write worship songs. We need to enter God’s quietness and rest. We need to hear His still, small voice with clarity.
What’s the missing ingredient? It’s your context. In order to write the best songs you need to hear what God is saying. Dwell in His presence. Serve His Church. Pour over His Word. Live His mission. Rest in His quiet.
Your best songs are waiting to happen.
Question: Think back to the best songs you’ve written. What makes them the best? Also, who is your favorite worship songwriter? What makes them your favorite? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Best song I ever wrote was actually one of your 5 minute-ers. But you’re right about the spiritual posture. It came from walking in circles in my living room alone with God and strumming a simple progression. My attention was given over to Him, and that made the difference.
Favorite worship songwriter is easy – Eric Owyoung (Something Like Silas, Future of Forestry). You can’t listen to ‘Stay Beside Me’ and not sit in awe of the simplicity and perfection of it from a songwriting perspective. But then the depth of worship it’s built upon come out… definitely a favorite.
Agreed. Attention on Jesus is everything. Too often I ignore that and focus all my attention on “hit song” methods.
Dude, I’m a massive Eric Owyoung fan. Probably some of my favorite music ever, actually. Remember “Words That You Say” from the SLS album? Brilliant.
I actually had a floutist… flute-ist… hang on, let me Google the spelling….. flutist. We had a flute on the team at one point, and did Spirit Waltz (SLS song) with her playing the high ‘Ye-ea-ah’ part as an accent rather than trying to get the congregation to sing it. And then mashed it into the outro part of ‘World Without End’ by Five Iron.
Such rebels, we were.
Amazing. Rebel Worship – make a record with that title 🙂
Well put David. We were blessed to have folks who were involved with Future of Forestry do our first EP, and work on our forthcoming ones. Ex FoF Guitarist Nick Maybury played on the Weekend Warrior Worship ‘Your Word’ EP, and our producer Jeff McCullough is a good friend of those guys and has been involved with producing the San Diego indie music scene for a long time.
With these kind of folks involved it definitely puts a burden on us songwriters to write songs that are well crafted and not shallow. You can imagine the re-writing that we get into before anything makes it to final production.
Fascinating. Were you guys rewriting lyrics in the studio?
Actually, yes. We rewrote some parts of ‘I Worship You Alone’ while the vocalist Helene Immel was waiting in the recording booth to sing it! When I first got the song back from Jeff he had set up a great vibe for the track, but also made it so the original chorus didn’t work anymore. So I rewrote the chorus and we finalized the lyrics and melody line for it right before it was recorded. Here’s a link to where we ended up. You can hear Nick Maybury’s slide work in this:
http://youtu.be/FhYUJ3-6FWY
Beautiful song, Mark! Love it.
Great Tips David…
i can’t think of anything else to add man…really great…and so true…
do you have a link to the interview with Louie?
Here ya go: http://www.catalystspace.com/content/podcast/catalyst_podcast_episode_113/ It’s two parts. I’d listen to both.
thanks!
Wow, great post. You really hit the nail on the head. In the Worship Leader Development class at my church, I taught on this very thing last week leading into a focus on spiritual disciplines. But you did a much better job. I may have them read this for homework. I think Tim Hughes nailed it when he said, “If you want to grow in writing songs that will express the wonders of God, immerse yourself in God.” Thanks.
Hey Todd, thanks for the comment. Been a big fan of your music for years. Love that Tim Hughes quote. Let me know how the students respond to the post!
I completely agree that songs come THROUGH us. That’s the only way I write.
To answer your question, one of my favorite writers today is Paul Baloche. He writes simply but thoughtfully, his melodies and keys are always congregation friendly. He talks alot about always “having your antenna up,” to always be listening, which you also mentioned. I really like what you said about contexts as well. I feel like for me the best times of writing I’ve had have been in the context of just being with the Lord and that being my focus. I’ve been reminded lately of through this blog and some other things I’ve read that this worship thing is about relationship. If we seek a thriving relationship with God, one where we communicate back and forth and desire each others presence, songs will come. Great post, man. I always look forward to them.
Thanks Jesse. Paul Baloche is a huge influence for me as well. You’re right – we need to just be with the Lord. So easy to forget the most important things.
Of course the songs of Him and to Him and by Him come from the listening and retaining and testing and testimony of what He is speaking to our souls and from His Word into our lives through His Spirit. Sometimes to sing other peoples music can feel pretty trite or dry, but then sometimes a song will just hit right where it needs or will come to mind to because He uses it for that. The translation of the pictures, presence and insights can be nearly impossible to get into words, let alone rhyme, and at the same time it helps me to just get it down, even if in pieces, so I can work with it more later. The tempo, tone and melody are usually not hard, they either fit or not to the message. He speaks in so many ways and His voice is distinguishable from all the rest. The bit of boiled potato, that shows itself for what it is eventually as well. Thank you Jesus for all you are, today, yesterday and forever more. Thank you for singing out for each and every soul using the language it knows best. Thank you for refining us in our days and in our ways to know you more as we let go of what it is we think we have all figured out.
This is GOLD! Louie knows what he is talking about! Can’t wait to share with my songwriters.
Thanks David
Thanks for sharing, Bren!
It’s true that it is so easy to get caught up in cliche, lyrically and melodically. I try to remember the reality that many peoples’ theologies are shaped by the songs they are listening to and singing. Songs stick. They hit “repeat” in minds and they teach. So what are our songs teaching?? I think you hit the nail on the head with your context list…if we keep these things in focus, we not only have powerful experiences with the Lord breathing songs through us by His Word and the people we are blessed to love, but we take seriously our responsibility to fashion songs that are substantive and valuable because of the truth they are placing in people’s minds.
Elizabeth, I like your comment because you make us feel the responsibility of songwriting. We are placing truth on people’s minds. Our hard work really matters. Thanks.