Archives for August 2008

This is what I enjoyed most about my time away:

• Mount Hermon, California – absolutely beautiful. Massive redwood trees, great weather, beautiful retreat center.
• Hanging out with Bob Kauflin – Bob was one of the keynote speakers who I was able to get some one on one time with. I’ve rarely been so affected by a person – visible love for God, love for people, and all around great guy.
• Hearing Derek Webb speak and sing – marvelous.
• Visiting random Mexican restaurants with my Dad.
• Drinking an iced blended coffee at ‘Coffee Cat’ that was even better than a Starbuck’s Frappacino.
• Realizing the highest calling as a worship leader/songwriter is ministering in a local church setting to a specific body of people. Super-stardom should not be the highest goal of a minister.
• Getting to record my song ‘Rising Glory’ for a potential CCLI TV broadcast!
• Having a roommate named Socrates – what a great guy!
• Connecting with Ben Gowell.
• Meeting some great songwriters and worship leaders from around the country.

THE SONGWRITER AS PROPHET

• The prophet is a recipient of divine revelation
• Prophecy is to speak the will of God into the world
• Prophets of God

Isaiah

Messianic prophecies

Jeremiah – calls to repent

Ezekiel – prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and a coming covenant

Daniel

Joel

• Proclaim the whole will of God
• Our work is to bring the revealed word – Word of Law, prophets, writings, new covenant, apostles, eyewitnesses of Jesus, etc.
• The prophetic songwriter is always bringing the truth…revealing all that isn’t a lie
• The prophetic is too cooperate with God’s agenda in turning people from evil
• we come to the lazy, dull, apathetic, heard hearts and speak truth
• we use words that arouse, anger, peak curiosity, words that provoke about what constitutes life on planet earth
• language has an implicit and an explicit function… some artists speak more implicitly – don’t judge those who do
• the prophetic songwriting voice can also be poetic (Dylan’s ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’)
• follow Jesus’ model and move from anger to compassion to distress
• There’s a time and a calling to express ‘distress’ in our songs

THE JOURNEY OF A SONG

1. Capture Inspired Moments

• songwriting as a ‘by product’ of living your life and worshipping God
• keep your antennae on all the time
• pay attention to: sermons, prayers, journals, scripture, everyday life, radio
• find your ‘well’ of inspiration… write from heart, not just head

2. “worship with it”… “play with it”

• are you getting a sense of where it wants to go?
• “what’s the feeling” of the idea?
• cardinal rule: make sure that ALL the elements of your song work together to enhance the FEELING of the message
• Is there a model in mind?
• stay in the child-like, right brain, “heart”, creative part for as long as possible
• allow the song to be a by-product of worshiping

3. Invite your left brain to the party

• a form should start appearing (verse/chorus/verse, etc.)
• start to edit, use rhyming dictionary, throw out cliche’s
• “crossword it”…fill in the blanks, the missing word

4. Start a simple demo or try with your praise team

5. Be honest about how it feels and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite

*Mia Fields is a songwriter from Hillsong Church in Australia

Hillsong wasn’t just given great songwriters… they are people living in community, challenging one another.

Songs come out of righteous living, but also out of grace

Why songs?

• There has to be more than simply God liking music
• Psalm 40:3
• Songs can help ‘lead people home’ beyond just words…they may not listen to you preach your thoughts, but they’ll listen to a song
• A major problem with Christian music today is solid production, great music, but ‘watered down’ lyrics
• Our goal as ‘truth tellers’ is to help people understand…when they see something narrow, we can broaden their understanding
  
• Truth is about understanding…understanding is about angles (John 16:12)
• Write from real life…your own personal revelation
• People are the focus

Types of Congregational Songs

1. Songs of Expression
2. Songs of Theology – songs that explain Scripture, explain who God is, ‘flesh out’ doctrine
3. Songs of Prophecy

Write through hard seasons…write about random things – this will make you a good writer

PRACTICE LYRICS!

• we practice our instruments but don’t think to practice lyric writing
• do creative writing
• write down random ideas wherever you are (fortune cookies, quotes from books, etc.)
• Write about anything and everything
• We need to speak TRUTH despite hard things
• People don’t notice musical mistakes…they are looking at the screen reading lyrics. Focus on your lyric writing.
• Bring Truth in new ways (Eugene Peterson and “The Message”)
• Buy Frederick Buechner books, Jon Foreman EPs, listen to good lyricists
• Help people get ahold of truth
• Just as you need to get better at communication, we need to get better with lyrics