Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Top Ten Ways to Write Bad Worship Songs

This is a post by I found on Between Two Worlds, but is originally from Worship Matters. I really like this post because I can think of sooooo many worship songs that I would swear do every single one of these things! So I found it more humerus than instructive seeing as I don't write worship songs. Maybe that should be the number ten top way to write a bad worship song "Let Ted do it". The original (and full) post is here, if you want to read the whole thing with the comments and what not that people have posted, plus I want to make sure they get credit for their post!
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In my eleven years as director of worship development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, I’ve reviewed hundreds of worship songs and written a few of my own. Not all of them have been stellar. Actually, very few of them have been. I’ve noticed recurring tendencies that keep weak songs from becoming good or great songs. I’m intimately acquainted with those tendencies in my own songs and I’ve listed my top ten below. While these thoughts are meant for songwriters, most of them apply to leading worship as well.

So if you want to write bad worship songs, follow these simple tips:

1. Aim to write the next worldwide worship hit.

2. Spend all your time working on the music, not the words.

3. Spend all your time working on the words, not the music.

4. Don’t consider the range and capabilities of the average human voice.

5. Never let anyone alter the way God originally gave your song to you.

6. Make sure the majority of your songs talk about what we do and feel rather than who God is and what he’s done.

7. Try to use as many Scriptural phrases as you can, and don’t worry about how they fit together.

8. Cover as many themes as possible.

9. Use phrases and words that are included in 95% of all worship songs.

10. Forget about Jesus and what he accomplished at the cross.

1 comment:

Jeano said...

Yeah, this was a great post from Worship Matters. Makes you think.