Song Writing and the Local Church Part #2

I can remember the situation quite clearly. My lead pastor came to me, told me he was going to preach on Isaiah 64, and that it would be helpful if I could write a song that would encapsulate the message and truth of that passage.

I had less than a week to do it, a skeleton of an idea, the Scriptures …quite a challenge ahead of me. Long story short, I wrote the song – 2 verses and a chorus, taught it that Sunday to the church from my keyboard! Surprisingly, the song became a classic in our local church… a sung prayer.  It lasted a while, each time bringing back memories and desires of what God would do amongst us. It carried the heart of the original message, and helped implant it in the hearts of the worshippers.

That’s the power of a home-grown song, and why it’s so vital to encourage and equip our creatives – especially our song writers.

Chances are, you have a person already writing worship songs. You may not sing their songs because they hide them, not confident that they are good enough. They need to be found and encouraged, because the payoff for the local church is huge.

Why then is it important to use your home writers?

• Home writers know where the church is at in it’s journey, and can write songs about that journey. They might write about keeping faith in God our provider whilst going through a lean time etc.
• They can write songs that reflect and indeed carry the theme for a preaching series. These songs remain longer in the minds of people (as my story suggests) than the sermons will… and that’s upsetting to a preacher like myself !!
• Songs written by home writers, both encourage and spur other potential writers in the church to come forward, and you may find that a song writing team emerges. I’ve seen it happen more than once.
• Collaboration is a vital part of all song writing and encouraging one might encourage another that you don’t even know about. The greatest songs in history have often been a collaboration, if not intentionally, at least at the production level.
• Songs from outside often don’t make sense to those who sing them at church as they reflect the language, culture, and move of the Spirit over that particular church community.
• The lead pastor can speak into the creation of what their particular community can sing.

Songs from other churches, big churches are fantastic and they are here to stay, thankfully. Yet, I believe that songs written by the local church song writer, have power to impact the local community in a way that other songs can’t.

Where do you go from here?

• Find your song writers – encourage them by singing one of their songs.
• Invest in them through training.
• Form song writing groups in your church.

The best suggestion I can make is to find one or two song writers in your church, and sponsor them to Song Writers Retreat (there’s one in a few weeks). It is a unique, boutique experience that will ensure that they grow in their writing, get ministered to, and return to their local church, not just with a well written, professionally produced song, but with the experience and knowledge to encourage others, and write better songs.

If you know someone who would benefit from this experience – and every writer does, pass this blog onto them or send them to Worship Canvas  to register for September’s retreat.

Please encourage your writers, and if you are a writer, seriously consider investing in the next retreat.

Leave a comment below and pass this onto others.

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