Unforgotten in the mouths of our children

The song of Moses is sandwiched in scripture with a couple statements about the impact of this worship song to the children(literal) of Israel. First as God gives his directive to Moses in the middle of Deuteronomy 31:21:

[21] And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” (Deuteronomy 31:21 ESV)

Then after Moses writes and recites the song to the people he clarifies the importance of the worship song:

[45] And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, [46] he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 32:45-46 ESV)

So we see clearly that a very important purpose of this song is to deliver lasting theological clarity and purpose upon the children of Israel. This worship song was meant to confront Israel, turn their hearts back to God, and for this song of repentance and redeemed worship to be instructed to the kids to the point where they’d never forget it.

I love that the point of instruction for the father’s from God isn’t to have the kids watch them live in response to truth. No God has already bluntly revealed their own wicked hearts and inclination to false worship, instead God has them teach God’s truth to their kids. So both father’s and children are aligning themselves to God’s truth, the only true barometer of righteousness. With that in mind there’s 2 points I’d like to focus on:

1. The value of song in teaching our kids theology

It’s been said many times in many different ways that song has a tremendous impact on teaching and framing our theology. I don’t think there’s any denying that and depending on your background it may be that the only thing you know about God is what you remember singing. Whether or not that’s a good thing is another discussion, but the truth is that’s reality and we can’t ignore it. My Dad was a pastor for many years, all through my youth. I can’t remember many of his sermons but I remember almost every song we sung. What I knew of the gospel as a boy predominantly came from what we were singing, song is and was instrumental in my growth in the gospel.

The Song of Moses shows us that song is a gift from God, intended to glorify Him and teach us about Him. Thank the Lord for song but what an incredibly heavy responsibility it is and the church needs worship leaders that aren’t afraid of carrying it. Too often I hear worship leaders shirking that responsibility and excusing bad teaching in song through some belief that it’s just some kind of “musical venting”. Just something they “felt” a responsibility to release but somehow “felt” no responsibility to consider what it communicates about God. I love creative worship songs sung from different perspectives in different contexts, that’s awesome. But know that ultimately you are teaching something about God and it’s either truth and God glorifying, or a lie and destructive. We’re accountable for that worship leaders.

2. Look at me vs. look at Him

The way we live as parents is a huge influence on our children, but the way we use that influence is what needs to be considered. I’d much rather use my influence as a father to continually point my kids to Christ, his accomplishment and the work of the Holy Spirit instead of hoping my influence and works somehow regenerate their hearts. Now I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility as a father to mirror Christ to my kids. It’s absolutely vital we mirror Christ to our children, but we also must teach them about Jesus, pray for them to know Him, sing songs with our kids that teach them the truth about Jesus and make sure we are mirroring our own need of Jesus to our kids.

We can’t just drag our kids to church and hope that through some form of osmosis they are made into the likeness of Christ. A godly environment is important but it’s not enough, godly influences are important but they aren’t enough, Jesus is enough, Jesus is what needs to be taught and aligned to. And if we as parents mirror that truth to our kids, then we’re doing as God commanded Moses, for parent and child to look to God, worship Him and be changed by Him.

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 5): “No empty word” (0)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 3): “Inclination to idolatry” (2)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 2): “Confrontative Worship” (1)

Know your church, know their inclination

In Deuteronomy 31:21 the Father reveals something incredible not just about his own nature(patience, mercy, love) but of ours as well.

“And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” -Deuteronomy 31:21

Ouch! God is commanding Moses to write this song of intervention and confrontation because he knows their hearts, that not only do they worship other gods now, but their hearts are inclined to continue in idolatry. The Father’s heart for his people is laid bare. Despite his abundant mercy and goodness shown to the people of Israel, they’ll continue to give praise and thanks to other gods. God knows this about his people and out of a heart of mercy and love, he has Moses write a song that will identify and confront the inclination of His people and remind them of the truth of the only true God.

Moses as a worship leader has communed with God, received revelation and contextualized this song for this people. Moses appeals to their specific history(32:7-14), calls out their sin (32:15-18) and sings painful truth of God’s righteous anger (32:19-43). What makes that song so powerful is that it’s specifically convicting to that people because the language is directed right at them. Not a generalized people, with a generalized sinful attitude pointing to a generalized god in the sky. No it’s you people of Israel, committing idolatry and being called back to worship Yahweh. I think the global church suffers greatly from over-generalized, hyper-sanitized worship and this happens because of a few reasons in my view.

First, the momentum(NOT consensus) in modern worship and really with all gifts, is to emphasize its place and value in the global church at the expense of the local church. You get a lot of talented guys that hop from church to church and instead of submitting their gifting to the local church, they’d rather contribute their gifting to the global church. And now the gifting is pre-eminent and hell hath no fury like a worship leader scorn when his pastor/leader comes between him and his dreams of global reach and influence with his tunes. No I’m not blasting famous worship leaders, this isn’t a rant against CCM and no I don’t have any particular person(s) in mind. If you feel convicted great, if not, great. I have plenty of friends whom I love and support doing God’s work in the global church worship scene(not sure what to call it).

Second, we fear man tremendously and want as many people to like our songs as possible. We write for the masses and in doing so accomplish the seemingly impossible of writing for everyone but speaking to no one.

Third, worship leaders don’t commune with Jesus, minister to/pray with/serve along side their people as much as they think and their songwriting shows. Be part of your church body worship leaders, pray for them and with them. Be in community, love and serve your people. Only then can you see the idols, the struggles and the places where Jesus needs to be elevated where he’s been lowered.

Was that as tough to read as it was to write? Aye…

Next in series…Part 4: Generational worship

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 5): “No empty word” (0)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 4): “Unforgotten in our children” (0)
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Worship songs should be confrontative

In Deuteronomy 31:19-21 we read God’s directive to Moses and God’s intended nature of this song and how it should be received by His people.

“Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness…” -Deuteronomy 31:19-21

God has seen Israel continually abuse his grace, worship other God’s, complain, be disobedient and unthankful, yet God is about to lead them into the promise land. God tells Moses, using very forceful language, to put a song in their mouths that will confront their wickedness, that will serve as a witness of himself when they undoubtedly turn away again. We must recognize that we are Israel, our church is Israel, we behave the exact same way.

What we need as a church body are worship leaders that respond like Moses. We must hear the calling of God, respond to the revelation in creative song and have the guts to sing against the sin we are engaged in corporately. We must put songs on the mouths of our people that confront our idolatry, that serve as a witness of Christ against our people because we love them. I don’t want to  repeat myself on this point so you can read an earlier post I wrote directed at worship leaders called “Play Songs Your Congregation Doesn’t Like“. As worship leaders we can’t pacify our body’s idols with safe songs that don’t challenge anything in our spirits, if we do that we are petty entertainers, not leading worship of the one true God that won’t co-exist with our idols.

Foundational to that point is worship leaders must know Christ and must know the gospel. Sadly all too often passion and zeal are celebrated to the exclusion of wisdom and maturity. Paul describes us accurately at that point in Romans 10:2 “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” We can’t confront idolatry if we can’t recognize it and we can’t recognize it if we don’t know the gospel. Where traditionally the reformed side has lacked passion and a sense of mission, the charismatic side has lacked maturity and a deep understanding of the gospel. Both are crucial to being an effective worship leader.

Worship leaders, I implore you as God implored Moses, put these confrontative songs on the mouths of your people. Interrupt their hearts and spirits and let your songs act as a witness for Christ. Know the gospel, know your people, know their idols, write about it, teach it to your people and sing!

Next in the series…Part 3: Writing in a local church context vs. Global church context

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 5): “No empty word” (0)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 4): “Unforgotten in our children” (0)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 3): “Inclination to idolatry” (2)

Worship songs are a response to revelation from God

As the story begins we see how Moses was commissioned to write a worship song to God for the people of Israel. There are 2 key phrases in Deuteronomy 31:16-19 starting at v.16 and ending with v.19 that describe how this song came to be.

16 And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.17 Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?18 And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.19 Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

We see that it all begins with God speaking to Moses, revealing something of his nature, heart, will and plan for His people as well as Moses himself. Then in verse 19 scripture says “Now therefore…”, highlighting the previous 3 verses importance as the basis for his commission to write this song. The song is born out of a response to God’s revelation to Moses.

When our songs don’t begin with revelation, with truth, we’ve set a trajectory for the song that is at the least misguided and possibly much worse. We can’t just know ourselves, our culture and the church, though all of those are important, we must know God. We must love God. We must talk with God.

As I read this story I’m struck that God has just told Moses that he is going to go die (31:14,16) and Moses doesn’t even respond to it. He only responds to the missional call, to God’s directive to “write this song”.  I can’t imagine at that point writing a song that wasn’t all mixed up with myself. That I wouldn’t just emote on paper and have a convoluted mishmash of my life’s greatest hits, regrets, worries alongside a few lines of God’s prevailing goodness. The writing session for this song was ripe for emotionalism, but Moses stayed in the story. He didn’t waste this opportunity and talk about himself, but he humbled himself and talked about the eternal God, who saved these terrible group of people who have constantly betrayed Him and will continue to do so. He laid down a lesser truth(his story) for the greater truth(God’s story).

Songwriters, we need to begin with truth, with knowing God and His story and following His missional call to write. It takes a humble songwriter, a songwriter obsessed with God’s glory and filled with his grace, to be able to lay down a lesser truth for the greater truth. God’s gifted and sent many in the body on this mission to write from several perspectives and that collage can be a beautiful reflection of Christ or a distorted refraction if we and our songs aren’t rooted in truth and true to the missional directive of Jesus.

Next in the series…Part 2: Songs as a Witness Against Our Flock

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The song is based primarily out of Philippians 1, which was challenging to work out of. The text is supremely rich, just not the most melodic phrases to work with, so it was a challenge but I wanted to use it. This recording is from the 2nd time we ever played it live. There’s plenty left to do with the song arrangement wise, so this is pretty raw but I like to get a picture of where the song is heading first naturally before working on tighter arrangement details, loops and such. I really question my judgment releasing songs publicly that are so early in the process, but getting critique at this point is always helpful.

Credits:

Kyle Campos (vocals, guitar)
Kendra Rohl (vocals)
Josh Dailey (Bass)
Jon Utter (Drums)

Lyrics:

Verse:
The passions of our youth, faded into sin
We laid waste to our call, and shame took us in
But you reached out in the night, left ninety nine behind
A dead man you found, filthy and bound
You loosened the binds, and life now I find

Lead me to live, lead me to live (x2)

Chorus:
Adonai, You gave me life
Now lead me in all that I do
Adonai, in this heart of mine
Shape me in the image of you

Chorus-Out 1:
Rejoicing in all things we sing
Christ be honored now
If we live or no longer live

Chorus-Out 2:
To live is for Christ, die is gain
We are not ashamed
If we live or no longer live

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“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest”

David Crowder changed the lyric after consulting with John Mark (which was a really cool thing to do by the way) to this:

“So heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss and my heart…”

I personally appreciate the original line in its correct context. The people that have issues with it typically take it out of context and that’s too bad. I’ve had numerous exchanges on this blog explaining the context of this lyric and why I do not change it when I sing it.

It’s unfortunate John Mark needed to come out and clarify but I think it was an incredibly humble and mature thing for him to do and he did it very well. You should go read for yourself what John Mark has to say about the “sloppy wet kiss” but here it is simply and succinctly:

The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (“gory” may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring).

I think it’s a brilliant line that attempts to illustrate the love in God’s sovereignty though many times we fail to see his love in tragedy, it’s there. I love John Mark’s heart for Jesus, I love that he makes us uncomfortable with his lyrics, his songs are a gift to the kingdom but more importantly HE is a gift to the Kingdom.

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What are your thoughts on what Matt has to say here?

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In part 3 we discuss deeply theological issues like, can you be saved if you use a PC and how bad was I going to woop up on him in Guitar Hero. Incidently John Mark was too scared to pickup the axe(you know that’s true JM). We also discuss all his musical influences.

Part 4 we get a little more serious and discuss what the church is getting right or wrong in our worship, how John Mark remains grounded doctrinally in his writing and what some of the ground breaking worship songs were in his view.

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So I wanted to give the church a chance to give testimony to the mighty works he’s accomplished in each person’s life that others might not know about. Thus giving glory to God and magnifying Him for the great works right before our eyes. I asked the church a question and requested responses from the congregation. The question was, “How has God’s grace changed your life specifically?” and here are some of the amazing responses I received:

• Hearing the cry from the depths of my soul, God met me in my dark place and He saved me with His most honest embrace.
• I lived a life full of shame, now God is using me to bring others out of a life of shame through His grace.
• God saved me from my self destructive ways and is showing me His way.
• I lay weak in the hands of grace and receive His strength.
• God showed me His heart and healed a life full of pain, tears and fears.
• Shame welcomed my sin, but it was God’s grace that lifted me up.
• In my self hate I gave myself away, but God’s grace came softly to me and drew me by love and set me free.
• God’s grace for me has drowned out the religious view I had of Him.
• A life of mistakes and pain dramatically transformed by a hand of grace, too big to understand, that’s my Jesus that’s my King.
• God’s grace has spared my life, literally.

Amen.

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1. Good Taste – This is where so many Christian artists struggle. Whether it’s because they only listen to Christian music and have no creative influences beyond Tomlin and Michael W. Smith or just that they weren’t blessed with an ear for creative music it results in bad songs and bad playing. I’ve known a lot of worship leaders that knew nothing of music, were part of a great worship service and then desired to lead it. Read a chord chart, practiced a couple weeks and off they went writing and playing really bad music, but because they didn’t have good taste, they were satisfied.
2. Accurate Self Assessment – Assuming you have good taste now you need to be able to be critical and have accurate elf assessment so that you can accurately measure how well you’re doing or how much you need to improve. Without this good taste is meaningless because you assume that whatever you write or play is great. You’re off in la-la land and any critical thought is shoved out of your head as an attack from the devil himself. Self assessment is important in any role in our lives so that we can measure and have a road map for improvement, but this becomes more difficult in the arts because people get offended when their “artistic expression” is criticized. Rubbish! You can see a post here I wrote on proper perspective of creativity and why worship band members are so easily offended.
3. Perseverance and dedication – If you have good taste and you see that what you’re doing isn’t up to the level you desire you may, like many, get discouraged and quit. It’s important that we realize every successful writer and musician goes through this phase, some never get out of it, but we need to persevere and keep writing and playing. That’s the only way you get better. I know it’s hard when you feel like you’re writing a bunch of garbage, but learn from the garbage. Our mistakes are the best learning tools we have, but if you’re afraid to make them it’s going to be hard to improve.

With all that in mind, here’s the video.

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• 66% of Protestants believe there are other ways to heaven than through Christ
• 11% of Protestants who claim the existence of God is an absolute certainty, say it isn’t very important to their lives
• 27% of Protestants do not believe in hell

The survey results should be sobering for church leadership and certainly is for me. A professor from Rice University summed up the report in an article well by saying,

“The survey shows America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only 3 inches deep.”

That is just a beautiful way of describing a horrific reality. It makes me examine what I’m doing as a worship leader to either contribute or combat this. Am I leading hundreds of people every week in singing a wide variety of songs that only go 3 inches deep? Do we sing songs that confront the notion that there is no hell, that there is a way to heaven besides Christ, or that Christ life, death and resurrection shouldn’t be that important to our lives? I sure hope so.

I think the important thing as a worship leader is to get prayerful and purposeful not just in our sets but in our leadership of our teams and songwriting. We focus a lot on unity, singability, melody which are all important, but what good is unity without truth? More specifically, essential truth. What the findings in this report tell me is not just that 66% believe in other ways to Christ, but that 66% feel comfortable showing up to church with that lie and aren’t confronted by truth.

I have no desire to lead such weak and sanitized worship that the flesh and lies of the enemy aren’t offended. In the coming weeks I’m going to start a series of posts on how our phrasing and word choices in worship lyrics can contribute to essential biblical truth. No ambiguous language, no vague interpretation, no confusing imagery.

If you have any examples of worship songs you feel do this I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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Recently I’ve been examining ways to get my church body even more involved in our songwriting process. As a worship leader and elder I’m aware of the larger spiritual issues impacting the body, and as my role as discipleship leader I’m privy to more personal issues on a smaller scale as well. But in order to bring in everyone something else had to be done.

The idea is this. We will write a song around a theme and ask everyone in the body to submit a 1 sentence response to a question around that theme. The song’s lyrics will predominantly be made up of these responses. First up we will tackle grace. The question to the body is this…

How has God’s grace changed your life specifically?

Huge question I know, so many aspects to grace so I expect a wonderful wide spectrum of answers. The goal is to answer personally(can be anonymously) and not generally. An example of a general response would be, “He took this sinner and made me clean“, a personal response would be, “He took my life of drugs and death, and gave me a life of purity and hope.”

I’ll then take these answers and shape them poetically to fit musically, rhyme etc… I’ll probably write a chorus that captures the entirety of the submissions, but if someone submits something that God puts heavy on our hearts then we may very well use it for the chorus as well. I don’t really know what to expect out of this exercise, this is new ground for me.

By God’s grace at the end we’ll have a skillfully crafted song of worship that glorifies God by demonstrating the life saving, transforming, empowering impact of God’s grace in our church body, by our church body. I’m incredibly excited to get started on this. I’ll keep everyone up to date on how well or poorly this experiment goes, should be fun.

Let me know what you guys think, am I nuts?

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Number Ten- Never; ever rewrite your song after the first draft. If you hit a lyrical block, you can use the words “really” or hallelujah” or “to the Lord” very effectively to keep the song moving. If you must rewrite, do it when you’re tired, depressed or angry. Don’t throw away the first draft, just in case the song inadvertently improves.

I hear all too often from “songwriters” in the church, “I wrote this in 10 minutes” as if that’s something to brag about.

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• How to properly use simile in worship songwriting (1)
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sim·i·le
A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as, as in “How like the winter hath my absence been” or “So are you to my thoughts as food to life” (Shakespeare).

A powerful tool of writing and one not much used in modern worship is simile. Metaphor is more commonly uses in modern worship songwriting and we’ll discuss that later, but for now I want to focus on simile. Psalms is full of simile which is no surprise since much of it was originally written as music. Simile helps us associate an abstract idea or theological view with a concrete illustration which helps us define and explain the abstract. Quite simply, an effective simile helps us understand a big idea by comparing it to an idea we all are very familiar with. Simile can also be purely poetic where the object being compared doesn’t require further explanation but the writer chooses to for lyrical clarity, imagery, style and/or conformity. Ideally both should be accomplished.

Let’s summarize things a simile should accomplish and then we’ll look at some examples.

1. Bring clarity to a big idea or theological view through comparison of a concrete idea or object
2. Poetically describe a topic so a congregation can sing the same truth through different lenses
3. Provide a fresh view of an old idea or truth that helps the congregation sing in spirit and truth
4. Support song topic

Things a simile should not accomplish:

1. Create confusion through inaccurate, inappropriate, incomplete comparison
2. Create multiple avenues of interpretation due to an overly vague, or abstract comparison. We should be singing the same truth not reaching different conclusions because you chose a really vague and inaccurate way to describe something.
3. Use so many fresh views that nobody is quite sure what is being described anymore. Similes should support the song topic, not distract from it.

Let’s look at an intriguing example in Psalms 39:11.

You rebuke and discipline men for their sin; you consume their wealth(beauty) like a moth– each man is but a breath(vanity). Selah

This is great usage because it paints such a vivid picture of how the wicked’s beauty and wealth are consumed. A moth eats bit by bit, leaving holes as it eats. David is a little preoccupied with his enemies not being crushed and dealt with as he’d like. So David talks a lot about this topic and this line does a lot to describe how God is working through David and helps describe an abstract idea of God consuming wealth with a concrete idea of how a moth consumes.

It was really challenging finding modern examples of good simile but I found some great ones after the jump.

“Grace like a river, is falling down on me” -Delirious (Grace Like a River – World Service)

Grace being one of the biggest abstract theological points you can tackle in scripture, Martin Smith uses a river to describe grace’s impact, origin and behavior. A river can be pictured a 1,000 different ways which helps everyone relate to the lyric, but it all points to the same truth. Everyone will agree on a river’s impact, origin and behavior. Amos 5:24 uses similar imagery to describe justice and righteousness. Speaking of grace…

“Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee” -Robert Robinson

Josh did a great job in his exposition of this line. A fetter is a shackle placed on feet to keep you from moving. Using that imagery to describe our desire to be tied to God’s heart is amazingly powerful, effective and beautiful. If there’s a perfect example of how to use simile, this is it. Kevin Prosch uses similar language in one of his songs…

“My innocence and youth, I poured them out like water”…”like horses that are yoked, to the chariots of kings. hook me up to your heart God, never to be free” -Kevin Prosch (Come Down – Palanquin)

A great example of not only using unlike objects in comparison but seemingly antithetical objects of comparison is John Mark McMillan’s usage in How He Loves.

“He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.” -John Mark McMillan (How He Loves – The Songs Inside the Sounds of Breaking Down)

What a crazy way to describe God’s love. But the supporting lines in this song paints a picture that is not only beautiful, but incredibly descriptive and accurate. How powerless we are and dependent upon God’s mercy.

One more example for the road.

You shine like the sun in all its strength. -Violet Burning (Like the Sun – Strength)

Now for the fun part, let’s look at some of the worst example of simile. I hate to pick on rap, I love me some hip hop every now and then, but they are the most violent offenders of the rules and dignity of the English language, it gets laughable. Exhibit A

“Like Kathy Lee needs Regis that’s how I need Jesus” -Kanye West (Jesus Walks – The College Dropout)

Talk about an underwhelming comparison. Kathy Lee doesn’t need Regis all that much apparently, she left the show. As much as I can’t stand this line for it’s failure in accuracy or poetry, I love it for it’s comic relief. Kanye is a funny guy and I bounce to his jams for the most part. But nobody spins bad simile like R Kelly

“We be high just like them weeds” -R Kelly (Ghetto Queen)

Maybe they have some really tall weeds in the hood, but where I come from that’s just a bad descriptive illustration. There’s a lot of things higher than weeds.

“Now it’s like Murder She Wrote once I get you out them clothes, privacy is on the door…” -R Kelly (Ignition – Chocolate Factory)

I could type out the remaining 2 minutes of lyrics in this song but this line never EVER resolves. How any of it is like Murder She Wrote I’ll never know.

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“Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace”

God led me to this scripture in John 1:16, “From the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another”. Through grace I have received continued blessings. This line challenges me to put into proper perspective my life, past, present and future. That everything good, every blessing has it’s origin in grace. From the breath of life to the birth of my children, God has extended abundant grace the depths of which I can’t comprehend but pray for God to reveal.

That in response to grace that my heart would be tuned to sing thy grace. God has created in me a new heart that thirsts for him. Out of the overflow and outpouring of my heart, my mouth would sing thy grace, how could it not. I can testify now that is my deepest desire, that my life would be a song of God’s grace. By His grace my heart be tuned, molded, formed that the outpouring of my life would be a song of grace, love and hope.

I love that this line demonstrates everything empowered by God. We the believer accomplished nothing here. God in his goodness gives us every blessing, then in continued grace tune’s our hearts that we may reflect that very grace. Stay tuned(no pun intended) for line 2 tomorrow.

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“God I know your truth, but I need it spoken in me. I know your love, but I need you wrapped around me. Give life to what’s weak, and be lifted as I speak.”

Fast forward to our discipleship meeting this past week and Pastor Aaron was leading out of 1 Peter 5, here are the first 4 verses:

1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. 

The phrase “Chief Shepherd” just jumped out to me, I thought it such an interesting name for God. So I just began to search myself on it and God began to reveal some stuff to me right there. Many of you may be aware that the position of worship leader in the church is not literally ordained scripturally, although there were many leaders in worship in scripture. Now along this line there is a wide spectrum of interpretation. From churches who don’t believe any instruments should be played, to just some instruments and not others, to do whatever you want basically. My point is not to debate the validity of any point in that spectrum but to show what I believe God revealed to me about the flaw in what I had allowed to become a belief. I use the word “allowed” because I don’t think I made a conscious effort to believe the way I had, rather it was a passive and evolved view.

What had seeped into me is that in many ways what we do in ministry is a tactic of modern church and God is not concerned with the tactic but the fruit, heart and spirit of the tactic. While I believe that to largely be true I think I became out of balance in that in some aspects to the point where I felt God had left me to my own tactics, music included. That not only was God not concerned by the tactics or ministry strategy, he wasn’t really much involved at that stage beyond inspiration and some remote guidance. Almost as if God would give me a little encouraging slap on the butt in the physical and say, “I’ll meet you in the spiritual end zone”. I don’t know if I can really explain it all that well, but that’s my best attempt.

Here’s how the scripture above totally jacks that up. Peter addresses God as commander of the specific ministry, Chief of Shepherds, shepherding being the ministry or tactic. What God began to reveal to me is that there’s nothing I can do righteously in the Father’s name without Jesus already having done it and been appointed as chief. If I am sent by God then His presence does not lift until His purpose is fulfilled, as long as I don’t step outside his will. If I’m sent by the Spirit to my neighbor’s house to mow his lawn for the glory of God, then God is Chief Landscaper. He leads every blade of grass being cut and willed it as so. How incredibly arrogant and prideful for me to believe I could even mow a lawn without God. I can’t do anything.

Likewise in my music, I had cast aside my music as personal style, un-important to others, un-important to God and that God only cared about the goal of the music and that it be done in excellence. I can no longer say that. When I write worship songs, I believe and now must admit God is Chief Songwriter, when I play, Chief Musician. If he’s not leading me in the physical act, the tactic, then it’s worthless and the fruit will prove that. (I’m not claiming God writes my songs or plays my guitar…I hate having to even say that, but I know someone will read and mis-interpret this, sorry in advance)

This is important to me because I had felt somewhat abandoned in my music. That what I did physically was trivial. Now I humbly believe God is on me, within me, He’s concerned with what I say next, He’s eager to hear what I play next to him. He finds joy in my abandonment, He is honored when I practice a solo, He is moved when I write songs for His glory. He’s not waiting on the sidelines to see how it all turns out, I believe God is along for the entire journey, the messy middle part where our flesh battles our spirit. I need God there, I couldn’t continue to do this without Him in the thick of things. This isn’t a radical change or departure in belief, but rather a crucial adjustment to remain balanced. God saw me angled off course and by His grace corrected me.

Thank you Father, for your truth spoken in me, your love wrapped around me, for giving life to my weakness, be lifted.

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Ephesians 5:18-19 says this: “Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart for the Lord.”  All of a sudden, I am taken to the old movies where a lady sings about her affections for her beau to a group of her friends crowded around listening to every word.  I have experienced that. There are a lot of songs that have made me think of my husband and how much I adore him. Just yesterday I was listening to “The Truth” by India Arie. The chorus says this:                                                        Cause he is the truth
Said he is so real
And I love the way that he makes me feel
And if I am a reflection of him then I must be fly because
His light it shines so bright

Just thinking of my husband and singing these words awakened a love for him within me.  Ephesians tells us to sing our love for God to one another. Worship doesn’t only keep our eyes set on Him… it keeps our hearts turned towards Him. He is “enthroned in the praises of Israel” (Ps. 22:3) He is exalted to His proper place in our lives, both as King and as the object of our desire, through our songs.

This lesson has challenged me in the area of my writing. What has been my motive? To write a catchy hook with unpredictable lyrics? Obviously, those are important aspects – creatively.  But the simplicity of honest praise/worship is as easy as a letter. If I can write pages and pages about my feelings toward a man who has the ability to disappoint and cause pain, then surely I can write about a God who never fails and with whom my heart is completely safe – Whether  it be about our undying love, or whatever might be ailing me at the moment, whether to Him or about Him. And if those words can fit well in a melody with a catchy hook and unpredictable lyrics… well then, I’d say that’s a recipe for a freakin’ good song!

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In Habakkuk(2:2) God tells him to “write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it”. The literal act of writing down revelation does a few things, it records God’s word and then is now able to be communicated to others. If we pray and hear God and don’t write it down, we lose it quickly and don’t place any importance on what God told us. So as a worship leader when I’m in the word, when I’m praying whatever I hear God speak I must write it down and make it plain for it to be told to others. God has not ceased to speak, but a lot of us have ceased to listen and many more have ceased to remember by giving a passing acknowledgment to revelation instead of determined, studious, laborous commitment to His word by making it plain and letting the herald run with it.

Over the last year I’ve written about 5 worship songs that are slowly getting introduced and into the normal song rotation. Each attempt to address a very specific area in our body. I always had 5 songs earmarked in my head as the magic number to start recording. So over this Christmas break I had some time to get in the studio and get to work. It’s exciting but very challenging at the same time. My recording, writing, mixing instincts don’t exactly fit the worship album mold. It will be interesting to see how this project progresses. I’ll be posting the songs on the blog as we get each song to a somewhat finished state. Stay tuned…

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Before I get to the video I want to tie this into songwriting. As a songwriter it’s critical that when writing a worship song you have a concept or dare I say revelation that you are building the song on. That you write creatively to serve that revelation and not serve your talent. Sometimes simplicity in your writing will better serve the revelation, other times complexity will. As long as the focus and goal is finding the best way possible to capture, present and respond to the revelation then our talent becomes helpful and aides in accomplishing the goal instead of a distraction and a hindrance to that goal.

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Don’t get me wrong, I know God is pleased with a simple “I love you Jesus”. That can be very powerful and as long as it is uttered and offered up as truth and not reflex I know God is moved and honored by that. But are we writing “I love you Jesus”, or “You alone or worthy” out of reflex? We’ve sang it so many times, heard it so many times, are we just emulating what we know fits the church and is proven to work?

Shouldn’t we sit in the presence of God, pen in hand, hear what is spoken, then challenge ourselves, how is this best communicated for my church body. We shouldn’t approach it as, how has this best been communicated in the past. Human creativity didn’t stop at Psalms. God is still speaking, moving, and we better learn to capture it and express it with our best in every area. I refuse to settle with any of my lyrics, I have in the past, even very recently. But this has really been driven deep in my heart. No more wasted words, no more reflexively offering up a cheap praise, that’s my religion showing up. I want every part of me engaged in worship of the King of Kings, my creative self has been on vacation and it’s time to return.

It’s been a real struggle these last few weeks of songwriting. This is hard, it goes against every religious bone in my body. To find the balance between creativity, practicality, singability, it’s no easy task. I’ve gotten it wrong in the past and I’m sure I’ll get it wrong again, but one things for certain. All of me will be showing up to write for my God, and in that I know he’s pleased, what else could I desire.

I wanted to include some lyrics from one of today’s lyrical masters Nina Persson of the Cardigans as an example. English isn’t even her first language and she writes some of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. I encourage you to buy Long Gone Before Daylight, this was the first album she wrote all the lyrics for, it’s unbelievable. Here’s just a couple examples of her genius:

“I never really knew how to move you,

so I tried to intrude through the little holes in your veins and I saw You.

But that’s not an invitation that’s all I get, if this is communication, I disconnect.

I’ve seen you I know you but I don’t know how to connect, so I disconnect.”

The following is possibly one of the greatest lyrical intros to a song I’ve ever heard. These are the first few lines of Please Sister:

“With a sampled heartbeat and a stolen sole.

I sung my songs to have my fortunes told.

And it said you should know that love will never die

But see how it kills you in the blink of an eye”

Lyrics like that grab you, take you inside the purpose of the song, and creatively express the passion that is so obviously felt here.

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“The major blind spot of megachurches is that they tend to be very effeminate with aesthetics, music, and preaching perfectly tailored for moms. Manly men are repelled by this, and many of the men who find it appealing are the types to sing prom songs to Jesus and learn about their feelings while sitting in a seafoam green chair drinking herbal tea—the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons. A friend of mine calls them “evangellyfish” with no spiritual vertebrae.”

Article from Christianity Today called “Men are from Mars Hill” posted 7/04/2006

Wow, that certainly sums up a few churches that I have been to and explains the lack of true masculinity and the over abundance of estrogen found there. I’m happy to say that I think our church strikes an incredible balance in appealing to both men and women from the ambiance, to the worship to the preaching and has found a way to be sensitive but not wimpy, passionate but not flaky and masculine but not chauvinistic. When I read the line about singing prom songs to Jesus it gave me such an image of what I don’t want the worship songs I write to evoke. I don’t ever want my worship to be a big cheesefest with ewwy gooey lyrics that don’t translate into any actual life experience and I think communicating our love to God and His love towards others deserves a bit of forethought and integrity in the delivery. Again, I don’t think that we are in danger of singing worship songs that would appeal to the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons, certainly not with Kyle & Aaron at the helm, but it was more of a heart and mind check for me when writing lyrics. Do they sound like they could be playing in the background of some tacky 80′s teen flick or do they sound like a passionate lover pouring out the deep cry of her heart to her true love? Even as I’m writing this I want to tell myself that if I did say something lame and hooky to God, He sees my heart and would know the true source of the words but since scripture says “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” I better check my heart to see if its producing shallow and juvenile puppy love songs or deep expressions of a life lived in true intimacy with Jesus.

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So, now a quick thought for songwriters. Not from me, but something I came across from Bono of U2. Speaking on songwriting he said “You can have 1000 ideas, but unless you capture an emotion, it’s an essay.” What a great thought. It can be so easy to generate ideas for songs – and put some kind of theme together. But if it’s merely a cerebral exercise it may only take us so far. Truth-based songs will always resonate to some degree, but taking it further, if that truth is delivered with passion, purpose and emotion it will be even more compelling. When writing a worship song we’re not just trying to give people some information. We’re trying to convey the awe-inspiring wonders of Jesus, and describing how our hearts, minds and souls respond when faced with these things. Just take a look at the Psalms – these songs are full of passion and emotion – poured out in the most full-on adoration, intercession and praise you’ll ever come across. They are built on truth, and oozing with emotion. So there you go – a tiny little thought on songwriting, courtesy of Bono.

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