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Congregational Songwriting: the submissions are here

A few weeks back I wrote a post here about an idea I had for our church and that was to let our congregation write a worship song, literally. This was sort of a group songwriting exercise taken to the extreme. I value worship songs that exposit biblical truth and also draw upon life experience [...]

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Closing the gap between your taste and ability

Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, talks about the process of improving in creative work. His context is primarily video and radio work but I think everything he says here can be applied to songwriting and musicianship in general. There’s 3 major points I want to emphasize that I think are critical to [...]

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U.S. religion: even “Christians” see other ways to heaven

There has been a lot of mention in various blogs about the recent survey report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. It was incredibly revealing, maybe not shocking though as many have seen the clear trends nationally and globally. But never the less, it was painful to be confronted with some of [...]

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Letting the congregation write worship songs…literally

At Life Connection Church we very much value songs written specifically for the local congregation. That doesn’t mean that they won’t have any relevance outside of our church, but just that it was written with our body prayerfully in mind. I believe that’s not only how the best songs are written musically, but spiritually I [...]

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John Mark McMillan Interview Part 2

I continue my discussion with John Mark on his songwriting technique and John gives us a little teaser on his upcoming album. Make sure to catch part 1 if you haven’t already. Once we release all the parts (there will be 4 I think) I’ll collect them into a single post. The free John Mark [...]

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How to write a mediocre worship song

Scott over at Scotteriology posted a great article by Bob Kilpatrick on How to write a mediocre worship song. The church certainly is full of them and this article gives you sage advice on how to write your own bad, errr mediocre worship songs. My favorite tip: Number Ten- Never; ever rewrite your song after [...]

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How to properly use simile in worship songwriting

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 [...]

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Exposition of Come Thou Fount, in view of God’s mercy (Part 1)

Come Thou Fount is one of the greatest songs of God’s grace I’ve come across. It’s lyrics are challenging, thought provoking, honest, desperate, vulnerable, humbling and encouraging. I’ve probably listened to the E-Pop version about 100 times the last few months. I literally cry every time, it is gut wrenchingly sweet and full of truth. [...]

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