I started doing some “worship metrics” I suppose you’d call it, on our set lists. I pulled out some interesting stats on the songs we use. One metric I wish we had was “anointing level.” Some kind of sliding scale that shows which songs God is using and the congregation is responding to(only partially joking). I suppose the play count is a reflection of that. So here are the worship song stats for my band at Life Connection Church.

Top 5 worship songs in the last year…

1. Hosanna - Hillsong United, We Cry Out - Kim Walker (tie)
2. How I Live - Kyle Campos (me)
3. I Am A Temple - John Mark McMillan
4. (4 way tie)
   1. Salvation Is Here - Hillsong United
   2. Ready Now - Desperation Band
   3. Rescue - Desperation Band
   4. Sweetly Broken - Jeremy Riddle
5. (4 way tie)
   1. What the World Will Never Take - Hillsong United
   2. Everlasting God - New Life
   3. Rain Down - Delirious
   4. Solid Rock - Delirious

Biggest Rotation Increase from 2 years ago…

1. Hosanna - Hillsong United (played 11 more times this past year)
2. We Cry Out - Kim Walker (11 more times)
3. How I Live - Kyle Campos (10 more times)
4. I Am A Temple - John Mark McMillan (9 more times)
5. Rain Down - Delirious (7 more times)
6. Solid Rock - Delirious (7 more times)
7. How He Loves - John Mark McMillan (6 more times)

All of the above songs were introduced this past year.

Biggest Rotation Drop off from 2 years ago..

1. Let Everything that Has Breath - Matt Redman (played 6 less times in the past year)
2. From the Inside Out - Hillsong United (5 less times)
3. Friend of God - Israel Houghton (4 less times)
4. Shout Unto God - Hillsong United (4 less times)
5. *Holy Spirit Come - Rita Springer (4 less times)
6. *Meet With Me - Michael Gungor (4 less times)

* Haven’t played at all in the last year, out of rotation

Would love to hear from some other worship leaders on what songs are topping their rotation currently.

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Lacrae and his group did a concert at Mars Hill Church but also joined Red Letter on stage during worship to lead a song this past Sunday evening. Amazing worship song. So cool that MHC has the courage to do things like this. I love seeing people with a conviction and identity and just going after it.

‘Send Me’ - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

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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 the facts. Here’s a few that caught my eye:

• 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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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 think that’s where the greatest gift is to the kingdom, in building of the local church.

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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Yesterday I posted the video of Tim Smith’s interview with Bob Kauflin and I must say how blessed I was by listening to the interview. I respect both of those men and value both of their insight. I mention in the same post some of the wonderful things that were brought up and I’ll blog more on those in a bit. The first follow up I have though is a disagreement in application of musical gifting in the church.

Around 34:50 of the interview. Bob says,

“…in the church I’m never going to achieve, or want to achieve the degree of musical excellence that I’m probably capable of, because I don’t think all that musical excellence will serve the glory of Jesus Christ in the gathered church.”

I would simply ask, “Why not?” The implication here is musical mediocrity will serve the glory of Jesus in the gathered church and I just don’t buy that at all. I think we’re all grateful Michelangelo didn’t have this attitude when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Surely those in worship would be distracted by the beauty of his art and the level of excellence he demonstrated. Surely it would have been better for him to paint in a more mediocre way so as not to draw attention to the art. Of course not, I don’t think there are many who would make that argument. The Sistine Chapel is one of the world’s greatest artistic expressions of worship ever created, if not the greatest. It’s easy to see the folly in this logic with other forms of art, but for some reason many make this argument when it comes to music.

Bob goes on to refer to something John Piper calls “an undistracting excellence.” Which states that “you are so excellent at what you do that no one really notices” but instead notices how great God is. Before I get rolling here I want to point out, I’ve never read John Piper’s thoughts on this, I’m only commenting on what Bob communicated in the interview. I love John Piper, and Bob Kauflin for that matter, and will certainly look for some text or audio on this topic to see what John has to say.

Now, while I agree fully that our focus should be completely upon the greatness of Jesus I disagree that the better you are musically the more of a barrier you become to that purpose. I also disagree that art is in someway a “distraction” from worshiping God. Our art should be a reflection of good, great and loving God just as our lives should be a reflection of Christ as the image bearers of God. Art is an expression, and to pick a point on a the scale of excellent artistic expression and say, “beyond this point you’ve expressed too well and now you’re a distraction” I think is pretty silly. Quite honestly I find mediocre and poor expression much more distracting than excellent expression and I think most would agree.

Looking at a crappy painting on a wall doesn’t reflect anything of God to me. Looking at the Sistine Chapel however reflects the beauty and majesty of God, not of Michelangelo. Listening to a bunch of mediocre musicians lead worship music by playing an uneven time, singing out of key, and writing terribly boring and poorly crafted melodies does not “better serve the glory of Jesus Christ.” Now I’m not saying Bob is saying this, but what other option are we left with?

We either strive to improve, play our best and craft the most beautiful music we can in response to God giving us the best of himself in his Son, or we stop working at our craft and say this is good enough for God and the body of Christ. I say the latter is not a good option as Malachi 1:7-10Malachi 1:7-10
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. ⁸ And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith Jehovah of hosts. ⁹ And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts. ¹⁰ Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle [fire on] mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.  

warns, we must offer our best sacrifice of praise. This also means using all wisdom in crafting beautiful but singable songs for the body to unite in. It’s possible folks, we don’t have to sound like Grade C musicians in the church to unite the body, please believe me…please!

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Resurgence posted a video interview with Tim Smith, worship leader of Mars Hill Church, recently interviewed Bob Kauflin, Director of Worship Development at Sovereign Grace Ministries. It’s a good long interview with a lot of great topics discussed, so make sure to watch the whole thing. I just want to point out a few points that were made that I find very poignant.

Tim explained the culture in Seattle and how stoic and passive people are even at rock concerts and how that culture is mirrored in their church. Tim asked how physical expression in worship might be impressed upon the congregation without going overboard and have physical expression just as habitual as non expression. Now I’ve heard this a few times from the Mars Hill worship leaders and I really appreciated Bob’s response. Bob explains how a non-christian should notice in the church something more significant happening than a rock concert. That the transforming relationship with Jesus Christ has made this church respond in major ways.

The important idea here I think is that sometimes we are so concerned in the church now with engaging with culture and not freaking out the lost that we forget we are supposed to be counter cultural in many ways. We shouldn’t measure our worship to rock concerts, because what we’re doing is orders of magnitude greater in not just importance but in life impact and purpose.

One of the great takeaways from this interview is this gem:

“I’m not called to lead a worship experience…I’m called to build a worshiping community.”

That statement is so rich and true, so much to talk about there, inspiring a few more posts I think. let me know what you guys think of the interview.

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Tim Hughes has posted an interesting question on his blog raising the question, “Can we sing songs of worship directed to the Holy Spirit?.” I think the question is more interesting in its choice of phrasing and inference then the actual answer to the question. We should all agree that we can’t sing any songs of redeemed worship but through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And if we can agree that worship is a response to God rather than self instigated, than the direction of our worship becomes evident by whom we are responding to.

The question posed implies a dissection of our theological view on the trinity. But to me that question is working of an improper assumption that redeemed worship(I quite purposefully distinguish between redeemed/fallen worship) could be “directed”, employed, engaged in, taught or experienced by, to or through anyone but the Holy Spirit. Our model of a perfect life of worship is of course Jesus Christ and Luke 10:21Luke 10:21
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight.  

gives us insight into how Jesus worshiped in a trinitarian life:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

The Son worshiping the Father, full of joy, through the Holy Spirit. Jesus was also full of and led by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1-2Luke 4:1-2
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
4 ¹ And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness ² during forty days, being tempted of the devil. And he did eat nothing in those days: and when they were completed, he hungered.  

). I don’t think we should be fearful of addressing the spirit of God we are to be filled with and led by. For it’s the same spirit that gives us the ability to worship the Father, Son and Spirit at all.

Tim does acknowledge this in his blog and points to more of a practical question of lyrical content.

“…can we sing ‘Holy Spirit, glorify Your name?’”

I don’t think we have any basis for removing worship of 1 part of the trinity. From a trinitarian view that would be to deny the worship of God entirely, and that my friends, I don’t intend to do.

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My mama sent me this is an amazing video from Hillside Christian Church. Yes I cried and you will too.

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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 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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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 39:11Psalms 39:11
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: Surely every man is vanity. [Selah  

.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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