Worship music lyrics

My friend Scott Lenger, and I are going to start a little blog thread about worship music lyrics. We were inspired by a hopelessly bad blog about the subject (I won't link here. . .:) ) and thought we could contribute to the discussion. Off we go. . . .

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Worship music lyrics:

As a worship leader and song-writer I interact with worship music lyrics alot. I try to write them, I sing them, I change them :), etc. . .

There are a few priorites I have when choosing songs and writing songs:

1. The lyrics should be biblically based and/or theologically correct.

I know that sounds really boring. But, that's our issue, not the song in question. When we sing we want to, ideally, sing what God has written for us to sing (Psalms. . the various songs in the N.T.) and when we write a "new song" we want it to be in line with what the bible teaches. If a song is way off on this. . . . I don't sing it. If it's close, I might try to change it, or at least make sure I talk about it with the congregation as we're learning the song.

Example: "Above all" by Lenny LeBlanc. I don't think he's a terrible person or anything,. . i've heard explanations of this song that work. . .but, for me to sing "you thought of ME, above all" (emphasis mine) would be untrue.

2. The lyrics should make sense or ring true when expressing emotion.

You save yourself alot of headache here if you have a balance of emotionally expressive songs and truth-declaring songs. Alas, many churches are heavy on the emotional expression, so this is a problem to deal with.

Some examples:

in the uber-famous worship song, "Breathe", it repeats the phrase "I'm desperate for You". I think I know what the author was trying to say, but it's not true that we are "desperate for God", in the sense that we don't have him, or he's holding out on us. If we're trying to convey our need for God, than I'm ok with it. Perhaps there is a better word than desperate.

In "Knowing You" it says "You're my all, you're the best. . "
I just feel funny calling God, "the best" like he's my mailman or something. . . "you're the best, dude!"

In "In the secret" by It says '"I want to touch you, I want to see your face". With how quick that line goes by in the song, I think it's important to remember that we can't touch God. . (folks died in the O.T. touching even the Holy Objects). Whether we will touch His Face in Heaven is up for debate, but, again, it would require some explanation in the service (and I'm not sure how that would go)

I don't use any of those songs above. Not a definitive statement, just my preference.


3. The song must be singable

This is a hard point, because there are many schools of thought. One way is to have everything easy to sing so that all feel comfortable singing the words. The other says that we should key things a bit high so that folks will have to "sing out" in order to participate, and will hopefully connect their heart to the song more as they really have to go for it while singing.

Being a tenor, I usually err on the side of #2, first of all, because I can't sing many of the low notes, and because I do think folks sing more passionately, when it all isn't "easy or comfortable".

David Crowder songs are another interesting topic, because for most of us, they're not phrases and melodies that we would be used to singing. However, his church sings them out with all their might. . . so this is a "church by church" issue.

This is already too long, so I'll get out. Your turn, Scott!

Aaron

www.scottlenger.com

Mobile, Hostile, Versatile

Hi all,

Malachi started walking recently, and so we finally tried to get it on tape. He's a bit shrewd as to when he'll actually begin to walk :). With the "encouragement" from Provi, and the bribe of a Lego from Eden, how could he resist?. I also like how he tries to reach the lego without walking. Apparently, he thinks he is very tall and can lean over, grunt, and reach it from 5 feet away. :)





and, here's one of him taking off a bit too fast. . .(and his mom laughing at him in the background :) )






ps. If anyone knows anything about the Canon 950, It seems a bit blurry to me during videos now. Pictures still look great, but not videos. I don't know if I need more space on my card or what?

Get 'em Matt!

Kids, stand up for your rights!!!

If you have kids, or have ever taken kids to the doctor's office, this is hilarious. :)



Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children's Healthcare



HT: Deyoung, restless, and reformed


Check out some of the items on the ticker too! I love the Onion :)

Steroids and the universal human knowledge of sin

Is anyone else sick of hearing about steriods?

Well, I am, and I"m not. . . .at the same time. I feel like Baseball should probably just shut down for a while, or perhaps actually release records/tests/concealed docs. . .from the last 7-8 years so that everything's on the table. So, in that sense, its still compelling to me. . . how deep does the rabbit hole go?


Its interesting how this has brought out the universal judge in all of us. Even the sportwriters who are known for hyperbole, false dichotomies, and overstatement, suddenly want to know the WHOLE TRUTH about steriods. Everyone is disgusted with the half-truths, the admissions of wrongdoing without details, the "not wanting to talk about the past". Even A-Rod's admission was devoid of some authenticity. Even if he doesn't remember exactly what he took (which, I actually believe. . . )a true apology means he goes back and finds out what he took so that he can apologize appropriately.

Why all the uproar? Why the judging? Why the handwringing? Why the "I don't know if I'll ever go back to the ballpark again!"

Because we know something is wrong here. . .we understand cheating. We feel like we were had, like the truth was kept from us, while folks made money off of us.

We understand Sin at some level. Especially when others are committing them. :) We have a conscience. Suddenly the relativists and the "anything goes" crowd are hardly heard from. We know something is wrong.

We know.

We know.

A disconnect

Regarding the jobs created by the current stimulus package. . . . . . Does the government really think that 5,000 people laid off by Sun Microsystems, . . . who were software engineers, project managers, developers, etc. . . . are going to go build bridges and fix roads? Those are two very different jobs and two very different giftings. The white collar folks are probably not going to be too excited about fixing our country's highways. It seems to me that many of the jobs lost (at least in my area) were from the tech sector. I know Detroit lost many, many jobs, but I'm not even sure our car manufacturers are going to go work on bridges. It doesn't seem to add up to me.

Just a thought. . . .

A little frustrated. . . .

I must say. . the economic stimulus package and the debate therein is frustrating the old random mind these days.

President Obama is framing the discussion that if you don't agree with the package than you are being "partisan" and you have ulterior motives. Also, according to him, he's the one who cares about the country, and jobs, and those against the package care about politics.

(first off, this is fear mongering in the worst degree., . . but we'll stay away from attacking Obama here)

Now, the reason I am against the stimulus package is because I think it's a bad bill. . . a terrible bill in fact. This has nothing to do with my party affiliation (I don't have one) and it has nothing to do with me hoping to gain the "I told you so" upper hand in the next election.

Are there Republicans who might be operating this way? Sure,. . who knows. What I do know is that some of the Republicans have had very, very cogent concerns about the bill and have disagreed with it ON IT'S MERIT'S, not for political reasons.

Here's an article that explains just how bad this bill is: wow Don't take my word for it. . this guy is from Harvard.

Here's an article that shows some of the dumber pork projects lumped in with this bill Again, this isn't Rush Limbaugh or anything, .. it's the Wall St. Journal.

(I thought the President was against pork like this? And, even taking the idealism out of it for a minute. . . .in our current state, could we not skip the pork for this one bill? Just this once? )

Bottom line, I don't like the bill because I think it's a bad bill, not because:
a) I'm a republican (I"m not)
b) I don't want job creation (I do, I think this bill might hurt)
c) I don't care about the economy(I do, I think this bill will definitely hurt)
d) have a vendetta(I don't)

Aaron