I am not claiming to have written the best worship songs.
Actually, I approach it wrong most of the time.
Great songs come out of a life well lived. They are the result of your honest experiences.
How do you write a great love song? You fall in love.
How do you write a great break up song? You go through a horrific breakup.
How do you write a great worship song? Well, you worship.
Sounds simple, but how many of us approach our worship songwriting this simply?
Worship Before You Write
I tend to view songwriting mechanically. I crack open Evernote and think about how to craft a hit song. I’m thinking about what melody is original. I’m thinking what lyric is fresh.
Basically, I’m editing the song before I even start; before I even worship.
Want to write better worship songs?
Get into an atmosphere of worship.
Begin to sing your honest prayers.
Allow the overflow of your heart to produce desperate cries.
These are the songs that will stick. These are the songs that will most resonate with the church.
Worship songwriting is not purely mental
You can’t just think about this stuff.
The glories of God cannot be contained within the human mind. Otherwise we wouldn’t need to sing.
The sheer volume of singing, dancing, and shouting we see in the Bible is testament to the fact that the glories of God cannot merely be dissected by thoughts.
They need to be sung and expressed with the full affection and emotion of the human heart.
Before you edit the song, live the song.
Ask yourself, “Is this song an expression of my honest love for Jesus or love for my own voice or ability?”
Worship songwriting is not purely emotional
Great worship songs aren’t just emotional responses. If all I wrote were my emotional responses to God, my songs would never go beyond, “I love you”, “I need you”, “you’re awesome”.
The pursuit of theological understanding works together with my heartfelt emotions to produce the best songs.
Get into an environment of worship, yes.
Sing your prayers, yes.
But never discount the steady, rigorous pursuit of knowing and treasuring God’s Word.
It’s not always glamorous work.
Sometimes you open Scripture and feel lost. Uninspired, at best.
In this moment don’t fall back onto what is immediately gratifying like Twitter or Facebook.
Press into the mystery. Pursue a deeper knowledge of God’s Word daily.
Hold this tension.
Embrace this tension.
Sing your prayers. Worship God with spontaneity. But then get to work on your study of God.
There are endless glories waiting to be discovered.
And Christ exalting, church transforming songs waiting to be written.
Question: What helps you write better worship songs? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
I have found some very similar truths in writing sermons as well. I have experienced a lot of times where I do not give the “proper” amount of attention to my sermon preparation but God always finds a way to use me when I let Him. Or even where I make a sermon extremely academic in preparation and then at the last hour God changes my heart and I end up just speaking.
Sing your prayers. I love that.
I find myself teaching my prayers. I get so emotional when teaching my students sometimes because I hold nothing back. Sometimes it’s just thoughts from the heart that are deeply echoed by Scripture.
Yes. I love your parallels between worship and preaching. Keep it up, Chris! 🙂
I have to say that I have recently came upon your blog and have been enjoying all these bits of wisdom. I’ve googled many worship blogs and I think yours is second to none!
With that said, our worship band has been wanting to write songs for a little while and this is a good list of some things to keep in mind. My favorite tip might be to sing our prayers. I wonder how many worship songs are a result of just that?
Wow, thanks Jason. That means so much! Excited for your team to start writing. It’s a great thing to do together.
“How do you write a great worship song? Well, you worship.”
So simple and yet so profound. I’m usually inspired in my songwriting by worshiping to other worship songs, but I think I need to take things a lot deeper. I know there’s more hiding inside of me if I’ll dedicate more time to just worshiping God with my voice and my guitar.
The challenge in balancing the mental with the emotional begins and ends with God’s word. “Press into the mystery” – I love this. How often do we shy away from something in scripture that we simply don’t understand? So good.
Well said, my friend.
Thanks, Ryan. I think finding time to just worship is hard because it doesn’t “feel” or “sound” productive. I think we need to stop thinking about being productive songwriters and just worship God and see what comes out, you know?
Great, concise thoughts on worship songwriting.
Singing straight out of the Psalms is moving as well. Just open the Bible and make melodies up using the words on the page. I play piano so put the Bible in front of me. Just a simple I, IV, V progression is fine. The point isn’t as much to be creative as it is to open up to God & His Word. The music will follow.
Because worship is a response, the Word gives us something to respond to.
The songs I’ve written that have connected most deeply with our congregation have been songs that sprang from response in study, listening to a message, walking in a forest, praying, etc … there will be a spark — seed thought — that stands out enough to make me take notice. I’ve learned to pay attn to those times. THEN, I start thinking about it … go thru some of the ideas you’ve just written about. The spark itself is not enough. It has to be brought down to the mat. Different people wrestle a song down in different ways.
Most of all, though, ask God to guide in the process. Hold the spark / seed thought up to God and ask Him to help you turn it to ‘bread’ that can be dished out to people.
Sorry to ramble…there’s so much to this process and much of it has to do with an ongoing reciprocation with God through daily life. Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
Fantastic insights, Liz. I love your idea of singing the Psalms and not “thinking” about being creative. Sometimes we just need to let it out.
open up psalms.
Sing out the psalms.
David knew what he was doing…Those words are there for reason…
I do this soooo much…
i love it!
I typcally always start witha melody…and the lyrcs come much later….
within the melody…i start to sing whatever…normally one little phrase…and build from there…
I really need to do this more often. Thanks Arny!
I agree Arny! I love doing this.
I’m no songwriter, but for some reason this post reminded me of John 12:32 – If I(Christ) be lifted up, I will draw all men to me.
I think some of the best songs simply point to Jesus in a mixture of emotional and spiritual way. Point to Christ, and He, through the Spirit, will draw men to Him.
Some of the best Christian songs I know of do that in an incredible way. They connect us to God.
Great post!
Well said, Don. My favorite songs are the songs that simply exalt Jesus – not just our passion or zeal. I really appreciate your perspective even though you’re not a songwriter! Thanks for contributing.
“You can’t just think about this stuff.
The glories of God cannot be contained within the human mind. Otherwise we wouldn’t need to sing.” …
A HEARTY AMEN FROM ME, BRO!
Thanks Fred! There’s something about pressing into the mystery of God and simply standing in awe. It keeps worship fresh.
Great tips here David, every line really spoke to me!
Awesomeness
Great reminder, David! My desire for my songwriting is that it comes from an overflow of being in God’s presence. Anything outside of that, I feel like I’m forcing a song out (like constipation of the spirit -haha!)
“How do you write a great worship song? Well, you worship.” Love it! My challenge is getting to that solitary place so I can enter the “Holy of Holies” within me.
Interestingly about worship, it flows very similarly to the OT temple. We enter God’s gates with Thanksgiving and courts with praise (the not so quiet part of us). When our spirits reach the holy place, that’s when we get serious about our sin because God’s holy presence is on the other side of “the veil” just like the priests cleansed their hands after making the sacrifices before they entered the Holy of Holies. As we enter the Holy of Holies our spirits are quiet, and we can hear the “sound of rushing waters.” We hear God’s voice in that place! That’s the place I want my songwriting to flow from.
Thank you for the post! It’s great encouragement to get our creativity from being in the presence of the creator!
“constipation of the spirit” – wow and wow. You win for comment of the year! 🙂