Worship Matters

Every so often I’ll run into someone who reminds me that long after we record an album, God continues to use it in people’s lives.

In late January, I was in Orange County, CA for a Gathering event. On Sunday morning I spoke at the Sovereign Grace Church of Orange County, led by Eric Turbedsky. It was there I met David and Laura. They shared their story with me and I was so affected that I asked them to send it to me. Here’s what they wrote:

We have been blessed with not only a daughter, but God in the last two and a half years has blessed us with four more little ones. These children belonged to my wife’s niece, but because of her constant drug use and continued imprisonments her children were taken from her. Unfortunately, these children suffered through physical and mental abuse, as well as, two were born with meth in their systems. We were overjoyed and humbled to think that God would use us to love and minister to these precious children. So as it stands, we have already been able to adopt the first three and are in the finalization process for the last boy to be adopted.

We have been so blessed to be introduced to Sovereign Grace Kids and play the CDs all the time with our little ones. They love the songs, and have learned many of them and sing along when we play them at home or in the car. One of the girls, along with her brothers, will request “Lazy Bones” which is their favorite one of all! As we have been in the process of finding a new church body, and I have gone alone to scout out a fellowship, my wife has stayed home with the kids and done “children’s church.” She uses these wonderful songs to teach our kids the wonderful things of the Lord and the Gospel. Because the words reflect the Word, our kids are getting deep theology with a great tune and memorable lyrics.

Thank you and your team for taking the time to put these CDs together. Your labor is not in vain. We see the fruit now, and have faith in God that these songs and His Word will bear fruit in changing their lives for Christ, and using these little ones to impact the world with the grace and love of God.

At this point we’ve produced three kids albums, and hope to produce more in the future. Awesome God focuses on the attributes of God, To Be Like Jesus explores the fruit of the Spirit, and Walking with the Wise contains songs from Proverbs. In all our kids albums we seek to steer away from moralism (“just be better and work harder”), and seek to highlight God’s mercy, goodness, and wisdom in providing a Savior for us in Jesus Christ, who is the greatest of all treasures.

If you haven’t heard any of our kids albums, you can check them out on our new website here, under the KIDS tab.

In just a couple weeks I’ll be down in Orlando, FL helping to lead corporate worship at the very last NEXT. The theme of this year’s conference is You and Your Church.

I’ve been involved with the music at NEXT ever since Josh Harris started the conference back in 1999, although then it was called New Attitude. I continued to lead when Eric Simmons took over a few years ago and changed the name to NEXT. It’s a fantastic conference that I’ve been hugely privileged to be involved with. But each year I’ve expected to be told that I wouldn’t be needed any more, since NEXT is a conference aimed at singles and young couples, of which I am neither. But for some reason, they keep asking me back, and I’m happy to participate.

I’m excited that this year, as in recent years, I’ll be leading alongside my son, Devon, and the Na Band. We’re looking forward to leading some of the songs from our most recent album, From Age to Age, as well as songs and arrangements that the Na Band have been working on specifically for the conference.

But what I’m most excited about this year is the topic of the conference: You and Your Church. It’s a subject that has gripped my heart for over three decades.

Back in 1981 I was touring with the group GLAD, traversing the country in an old Greyhound bus, playing in churches, schools, concert halls, parks, and for anyone else who would have us. We had just signed a three album contract with The Benson Company and our fan base was growing. The future looked bright.

But something didn’t seem quite right to me. We would come to a town, set up, play our songs, tell people what God has done for us in Jesus, see people respond, and then move on to the next city. I wanted to be a part of something more lasting and ongoing. I wanted to see people evangelized, converted, baptized, discipled, trained, and released for fruitful ministry. Which meant I wanted to give my life to building local churches on the gospel for the glory of God.

Thirty years later my passion remains the same. If anything, it’s increased. And at NEXT I’m excited that we’ll be passing on that desire to the next generation.

Here’s the line up of topics/speakers:

The Church and the Purpose of God: The Eternal Significance of Your Local Church (Jeff Purswell)
The Church and Membership: Our Privilege and Protection (Jared Mellinger)
The Church and Sunday: A Little Taste of Heaven on Earth (Ian McConnell)
The Church and Friendship: How Not to be a Stupid Friend (Kevin DeYoung)
The Church and Holiness: Why Jesus Says We Need It and Why We Don’t Want to Talk About It (Kevin DeYoung)
The Church and Culture: Reaching Out Without Selling Out (Matt Chandler)
The Church and Disappointment: When Expectations Collide with Reality (CJ Mahaney)

If you’ve lost your vision for the church, aren’t certain about your place in the church, or want to increase your fruitfulness in your local church, then NEXT was designed for you. Online registration ends this Sunday, May 13, at midnight. Would love to see you there!

Here are a few promo videos we put together for the conference:

After hundreds of hours of preparation, our newest album, From Age to Age, is finally available. It’s a collection of 14 songs (15 if you count the instrumental prelude), that were inspired by or drawn from the great hymn writers of the past.

Here’s how we described the album in the liner notes:

How does one define a hymn?

It’s hard to say, but most hymns are characterized by theologically rich lyrics, symmetrical rhythmic patterns in the verse lyrics, and a tune that congregations find easy to sing. At the heart of hymn-writing is a desire to create a song that will endure for generations.

Inspired by the hymn writers of the past, we’ve written 14 new hymns for this album. Some songs are old hymn lyrics set to new tunes. For others, we used the thematic structure of a hymn as the basis for an entirely new song.

And in some cases we’ve written completely new hymns that attempt to communicate the inexhaustible riches of God’s word and the Gospel through the simple elements of words and melodies.

Above each lyric, different songwriters have shared thoughts on the background or meaning of the song. We hope you enjoy their stories. More importantly, we hope these songs open your heart and mind to the song that never changes from age to age: the song of the redeemed to their matchless Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Since the early 90s, this makes our 36th album. We produced around 16 Song Service tapes and a few albums before that, but who’s counting? Here’s what excites me about our newest release.

1. While our albums are never short on lyrics, I think this may be one of our richest projects yet, theologically speaking. Just a few songs are of the “2 verse and a chorus” format, and eleven of them have 3 or more verses. We don’t think long songs are better. We just believe the glories of God’s word, works, and worthiness stretch the boundaries of our ability to express them. A thousand tongues will never be enough.

2. We produced  the album in-house. I’m grateful for my good friend Sal Oliveri from Nashville, who produced seven of our more recent albums and helped us grow in our sound and direction, musically speaking. But last year Steve Cook came on staff again at Sovereign Grace, and under his leadership we’ve produced albums that are more representative of what our musicians are doing, starting with The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11, and now including From Age to Age.

3. I’m grateful to God for three guys from Enfield – David Zimmer, Ryan Foglesong, and Wil Pearce – who along with Joel Sczebel, came up with most of the arrangement ideas on the album. People who have heard From Age to Age have mentioned it sounds different from previous Sovereign Grace albums. There are more ambient guitar beds, creative elements, and indie-sounding tracks. Joel Sczebel said even his friends like it. Can there be higher praise?

4. Along with some great vocalists featured on previous Sovereign Grace recordings – Meghan Baird, Erin Hill, Dale Bischof, and Devon Kauflin – we added the vocal talents of Sojourn Music’s Brooks Ritter on three tracks. Brooks flew in for about 3 and a half hours and blessed us not only with his gifts, but his joyful, humble attitude.. His vocal chops instantly add more soul to any project.

5. The album includes 4 songs written by guys who have served as interns with Ken Boer and me: Joel Sczebel, Zach Sprowls, Eric McAllister, and Matt Richley. It’s a joy to see guys we’ve worked with bearing fruit. I also co-wrote a song with my admin/daughter, Brittany, called Immovable Our Hope Remains. That was sweet.

6. Back in 2008 we produced Come Weary Saints, designed to remind us of our hope in Christ even in the midst of trials. From Age to Age has the same effect. As I’ve listened to the songs (and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done that), my heart has been directed to themes like God’s sovereignty, his goodness, sufficiency, and  power, the glory of the gospel, the return of Christ, God’s unchanging character, and his never-failing love.

Well, enough about my thoughts on the album. Take a listen yourself and let me know what you think.

You can sample the songs on the cool new Sovereign Grace website, and sample/download the album from iTunes ($9.99), Amazon ($7.99), or Bandcamp ($9.00). We’ll be adding the physical CD from our store shortly.

And yes, free charts, lead sheets, and piano scores are coming soon. Thanks for your patience…

Yesterday we launched the new Sovereign Grace Music website. And boy, am I excited about it.

My good friend Bo Lotinsky was the one who had the foresight to launch the first Sovereign Grace Music, which has served us for a number of years. But as Sovereign Grace Music has grown so has our desire to serve the people who use our music. The new website is a huge step in that direction.

Cabedge did a brilliant job designing the site and were very responsive to our wishes and desires. The back end (under the hood) was put together in-house by our master IT wizard, Dave Mays. Without him we’d just have a clean website that did nothing. My daughter/admin Brittany oversaw entering all the data and we worked together on the info. She’s the one who made the FAQ and permission pages sound more like a real person and less like a robot.

So here are ten reasons why I think you’ll like our new site:

1. All the music, charts, info, videos, and samples from 33 Sovereign Grace albums are in one place.
2. On the Songs page you’ll be able to search for any song by keyword, tempo, genre, key, or theme. And because most of the people who use our music need more categories than chorus and hymn, you can search any combination of the more than 80 themes listed.
3. On an Album page you can sample every song, buy any song from iTunes, Amazon, or Bandcamp, download a zip file of all the sheet music related to that album, read info, leave a comment, and view pictures or videos related to the album. For many albums you can also click through to buy the CD from our store.
4. On the Artist page you can learn more about the musicians who actually produce the music we make. You’ll also see every song they’ve participated in, what role they played, and have the opportunity to hear and/or buy those songs from Amazon, iTunes, or Bandcamp.
5. On any individual song page you can read the lyrics to the song, download any sheet music related to the song with one click (including the 3-staff piano scores!), comment on the song, and see characteristics of the song including composer, vocalists, album, key, tempo, genre, and themes. You can click on any of those categories to find songs with similar characteristics.
6. The FAQ page has a lot of questions we’ve been asked over the years, and a few we think we should have been asked.
7. The permissions page tries to simplify the often complex world of using other people’s music, including ours.
8. On the front page we list recent songs, our most popular songs, and free songs (which you can download with one click, of course).
9. We have the lyrics to “official” Spanish translations to some of our songs and hope to post many more.
10. In the near future we also hope to have a Scripture search function that will enable you to find songs related to specific Bible texts.

All that to say, I’m pretty excited about the potential this new site has for making it easier for people to use, listen to, play, buy, share, and sing our songs. I’m hoping you think the same thing.

But enough talk already! You can check out the site here.

And let me know what you think.

On April 10 we’ll be releasing our next album, From Age to Age, a collection of 14 new hymns for the church. We call them “hymns” because either they were based on or inspired by hymns of the past, or because the lyrics adhere to a metrical pattern in the verses. The songs also contain a theological richness that characterize most hymns.

One song I wrote for the album is called Glorious Christ. I unashamedly got the idea for the song from Chris Tomlin’s How Great is Our God, which seems to be sung throughout the world. I love how Chris’ song focuses on God’s character and works then draws out the appropriate response of magnifying the Lord in song and inviting others to join along. I thought, “I’d like to write a song like that that focuses specifically on Jesus.”

One day as I was reading the first chapter of Hebrews I was struck by how many ways the author highlights the preeminence and superiority of Christ. In just the first four verses we’re told that Jesus is:

• God’s Word to us (vs. 1)
• the heir of all things (vs. 2)
• the creator of the world (vs. 2)
• the radiance of the Father’s glory (vs. 3)
• the exact imprint of God’s nature (vs. 3)
• the one who upholds the universe (vs. 3)
• the one who made purification for our sins (vs. 3)
• now seated at God’s right hand (vs. 3)
• superior to angels (vs. 4)

Wow. While it’s biblical and right to worship God as the Trinity, the Father takes special delight when we honor His Son (Phil. 2:9-10). The Spirit has come for the purpose of glorifying Jesus (John 16:14). So it’s appropriate for us to seek to increase our understanding of, appreciation for, and commitment to proclaiming and cherishing how glorious Christ really is. And that’s what I was attempting to do when I wrote Glorious Christ.

When we were working on From Age to Age, Joel Sczebel had the idea of recording an acoustic version in the studio. So we played through the song a few times and ended up with the video below. That’s some of the Enfield guys on percussion (David Zimmer), mandolin (Wil Pearce),  and acoustic (Ryan Foglesong). Joel played the other acoustic while I sat in (stood in?) on piano. Eric McAllister, currently one of our interns, sang vocals, although Dale Bischof sings it on the album. If you want to sample what’s on the album you can hear it on the iTunes pre-order page. Lyrics are below.

The album comes out April 10, but you can pre-order it for only 5 bucks at our Bandcamp site.

The radiance of the Father
Before the dawn of time
You spoke and all creation came to be
The molecules and planets
Reveal Your great design
And every one was made so we could see
So we could see

You are the glorious Christ
The greatest of all delights
Your power is unequaled
Your love beyond all heights
No greater sacrifice
Than when You laid down Your life
We join the song of angels
Who praise You day and night
Glorious Christ

You left the air of heave
To breathe the dust of earth
And dwell among the outcast and the poor
You came to be forsaken
And died to take our curse
So You could be our joy forevermore
Forevermore

You’re seated now in heaven
Enthroned at God’s right hand
You’ve shattered death and freed us
From our fears
And though we cannot see You
You’re coming back again
And all will be made right when You appear
And all will be made right when You appear
By Bob Kauflin © 2012 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

The worship song outpouring in the last two decades has resulted in thousands of new songs for the church to sing. Many have been expressions of praise, thanksgiving, love, and commitment to God. Others intentionally seek to help us engage directly with God’s Word to us.

That’s one of the purposes of music Paul refers to in Colossians 3:16 when he says that we’re to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

I was encouraged a while back to come across an album by Matt Searles, a 32 year old assistant pastor at Dundonald Church in Wimbledon, London. The album is called Now and Not Yet – Acoustic Psalms. The production is simple – just guitar and female vocal – but the lyrics are derived directly from 10 different Psalms. Two are taken from the Free Church of Scotland Psalmody Committee, and the rest are written by Matt. Here’s what he has to say about the project:

We need the psalms. Not only does God graciously reveal himself to us in his word, but he also gives us vocabulary to express our experience of him. The psalms speak of joy, confidence, celebration and praise, but also despair, grief, questioning and doubt. Rather than deny these feelings, our loving Father tells us to bring them all to him. The psalms are the words he gives us to do this. 

The psalms speak of the great joy there is in this life in following the Lord, but also the fact that we await the new heavens and earth before we’ll fully experience all the blessings that are ours in Christ. In short, the psalms speak of what is now and not yet.

I wrote and asked Matt to fill me in a little on how the album came about and this is his response:

I’d been spending a lot of time in the psalms since studying them at theological college, and there we’d sung some metrical psalms, which I’d found to be a blessing. The range of imagery and emotion (including lament and crying out to God as well as praise) was broader than what I was used to singing in church.

Then this all hit home 18 months ago when my Mum suddenly fell ill, and died 3 months after. My Dad had died some years previously. At this time of grief I was spending lots of time in the psalms, and I began humming tunes for the words that were going round my head. In the Lord’s goodness this really helped me to get the words of the psalms not just into my head by my heart. My version of Psalm 30 was performed at my Mum’s funeral, and after this I thought that these songs might be a blessing to others, so I took a decision to try to record a simple album (I can’t sing or really play guitar, so I paid someone to do it for me!)

My prayer is that through these songs people might be helped to engage with our loving Father, even at times of great sorrow. I’m increasingly persuaded that part of a pastor’s job is not simply to teach sound doctrine, but to teach our people the vocabulary to express their relationship with God. That’s why, despite being a pastor rather than a great musician, I’ve been pursuing this project.

I’ll certainly keep writing songs – my Dad was a guitarist and when Mum died I inherited a couple of guitars from him (including a 1930s Gibson!!) that I’ve been learning to play. And there are plenty more psalms I could do with knowing a bit better! But I feel that God helped me with these songs in a particular way, perhaps if nothing else because I needed the words of these psalms in my head and my heart.

You can check out his album at Bandcamp.

Specifically, I haven’t learned anything from Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) about leading congregational worship that I didn’t learn first in Scripture.

But in his day, Aristotle sought to help speakers be more persuasive by identifying three crucial areas to keep in mind. He called them logos, ethos, and pathos.

Briefly, logos is seeking to persuade through truth. Aristotle was concerned that the speakers of his day, the sophists, focused too much on flowery language and not enough on actual content.

Ethos has to do with the character of the person speaking. Aristotle recognized that listeners tend to be influenced most by people whose character they trust.

Pathos refers to the ability to stir the emotions of your listeners. Important truths are often presented with no apparent response in the hearer. Airline attendants experience that every time they review the flight safety procedures before takeoff.

When I lead people to worship God in song, I’m seeking to persuade them that Jesus is more worthy of worship than money, possessions, sex, power, relationships, or anything else we idolize. While our trust is ultimately in the Holy Spirit to do that work in people’s hearts, the Spirit uses means. And three of those means are logos, ethos, and pathos.

Logos
A number of things can affect us emotionally when we’re singing together: a cool guitar riff, a bombastic pipe organ, fresh arrangements, skillful musicianship, a dynamic choir, being with people we love, well-executed transitions, intentional lighting. But being moved emotionally isn’t always the same thing as actually worshiping God. Worshiping God requires knowing God, which requires truth. That means that before I think about the arrangements, lighting, transitions, video clips, drum patterns, vocal harmonies, or a hundred other possible elements, I need to make sure that I’m seeking to communicate truth that is biblical, substantive, Christ-exalting, and understandable.

Logos obviously affects the lyrics of the songs I choose. Whether we’re singing objective truths about God or responding to those truths, our words should be governed and fueled by God’s Word. But logos also includes anything I say to the congregation or lead them in saying. (I did a series on that topic a while back and you can check out the first post here.) Valuing logos means I won’t assume everyone knows what we’re singing about and I’ll take time to explain words and actions. It means I won’t think I’ve done my job simply because people are excited. I’ll want to know why they’re excited.

Ethos
It’s unfortunate when someone is leading worship in song and you have a hard time believing they really mean what they’re singing. It could be the plastered on smile. It might be the disconnected mumbling they do between songs. Maybe it’s the lackluster way they read Scripture or hearing them shout out the same three Christianese phrases in every song. Whatever it is, no one’s buying it.

Caring about ethos means I seek to build trust with the people I’m leading. If you lead a congregation on a regular basis it’s easier for people to get to know you. But even in that context we can fail to build trust if we’re superficial, take on a “worship leader persona” that’s distinct from who we normally are, or live in a way that contradicts what we’re singing. If I’m leading a group of people who don’t know me well, valuing ethos means I’m personal, vulnerable, and clear. I don’t hype Jesus or my band, I don’t start sweating profusely when things don’t go as planned, and I communicate out of a desire to serve rather than impress.

Pathos
I’m frequently asked how to motivate a seemingly unaffected congregation. I say seemingly because you can’t always tell what’s going on in someone’s heart simply by what you see on the outside. But both Scripture and experience tell us that our emotions are generally reflected through our bodies. If you give attention to logos and ethos, people will typically be emotionally engaged. But I’ve found two other things helpful.

First, I have to be genuinely affected by the truths I’m singing and proclaiming. I have to be actually worshiping God while I’m leading others to do so, and it should be evident on my face and in my body. When I’m being led, I’ve often been moved just by seeing how engaged and passionate the leader is.  Second, we can engage people emotionally by making connections and drawing contrasts. Whenever I lead, I want to help people connect who God is and what He’s done for us in Jesus with the circumstances they find themselves in.

Are you struggling with condemnation? Jesus purchased our full forgiveness and has overcome the accuser of the brethren.
Do you worry about the future? We worship a God who is sovereign over all things, and even caused the “tragedy” of the cross to bring about our salvation.
Are you battling lust, anger, or greed? Jesus has risen from the dead and has sent his Spirit who works in us to desire and to do the God’s will.

We can also engage emotions by drawing contrasts. I might ask questions like, “What would happen if this wasn’t true…if we didn’t meet together…if we were still under the wrath of God…if Jesus hadn’t risen?” Considering those questions often helps people to see why what we’re proclaiming is so crucial.

Logos, ethos, pathos. Three means the Spirit uses to lead others into a greater love for God as we sing the praises of our Savior.

Where can you grow?

When we were putting together the songs for The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11, we ended up having not one, but two songs that served as a “prayer for illumination.” One is Your Words of Life, written by Pat & Joel Sczebel. The other is Show us Christ, which I co-wrote with Doug Plank.

Show Us Christ reminds us that the purpose of preaching God’s Word is not simply to give insights for living, impress people with our knowledge of Greek, or to tell people they need to try harder. The primary goal is to display the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). The written and preached Word is meant to point us to the riches of the living Word. And because we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the glory of Christ in Scripture, it’s right and good that we ask God for help to do just that.

Here’s a video of Meghan Baird singing the song, with me accompanying on piano.

You can download the guitar chart in Bb here, in the key of A here, and the lead sheet in Bb here. Lyrics are below.

Prepare our hearts, O God, help us to receive
Break the hard and stony ground, help our unbelief
Plant your Word down deep in us, cause it to bear fruit
Open up our ears to hear, lead us in Your truth

Show us Christ, Show us Christ
O God, reveal Your glory through the preaching of Your Word
Until every heart confesses Christ is Lord

Your Word is living light upon our darkened eyes
Guards us through temptations, makes the simple wise
Your Word is food for famished ones, freedom for the slave
Riches for the needy soul, come speak to us today

Where else can we go, Lord?  Where else can we go?
Your have the words of eternal life
By Doug Plank and Bob Kauflin, copyright 2011 Sovereign Grace Praise

(If you don’t already use it, another song I’d recommend to sing before the sermon is Speak, O Lord, by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.)

The first song I heard that I thought would be on our most recent album, The Gathering, was Have Mercy on Me. Co-written by Dale Bischof and Pat Sczebel, it combines grief over sin with an assurance of God’s mercy in Christ.

Even though as Christians all our sins are completely forgiven (Col. 2:13), we can continue to battle either ongoing condemnation or arrogant presumption. The first results in an attitude that binds us, discourages us, and makes us fearful of approaching God. The second equally dangerous mindset supposes that because our sins have been paid for by Christ’s substitutionary death, we don’t have to think about them any more. They’re not that big a deal.

The reality is, embracing the gospel leads us to an ever deepening awareness of our sinfulness, internal and external, accompanied by an ever growing grateful amazement that God has shown us lavish mercy in Jesus. This song helps us to express both.

Download the guitar chart. Download the lead sheet. Lyrics below.

I am a sinner, You’re blameless, Lord
My sins against You can’t be ignored
They will be punished, I know they must
Your laws demands it, for You are just
If You would count everything that I’ve done wrong
Who could stand?
But there’s forgiveness with You, God

Have mercy on me, have mercy on me
A broken and a contrite heart
You won’t turn away
Have mercy on me, have mercy on me
Because of Your steadfast love

Father of mercy, You gave Your Son
To make atonement for wrongs I have done
What You required Jesus fulfilled
I don’t deserve it, I never will
If You would count everything that I’ve done wrong
Who could stand?
But there’s forgiveness with You, God
Music and words by Dale Bischof and Pat Sczebel.
© 2011 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)/Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

David Mathis, of Desiring God Ministries, has written an excellent article on the importance of keeping both our sinfulness and God’s grace in view. You can read it here.

My top recommended book on a biblical theology of worship is David Peterson’s Engaging with God. If you’re responsible for leading in your church, either as a pastor or a musician, I think you’ll serve people more faithfully and biblically if you read it. I go through it every year with my interns and never fail to come away from our discussion times with fresh understanding and inspiration for leading corporate worship.

Peterson focuses on worship as it’s understood in the Old Testament, the gospels, and various epistles. The chapters on Hebrews and Revelation by themselves are worth the price of the book.

This past Wednesday we were discussing the chapter on Revelation. Many Christians tend to avoid Revelation because they view it as a somewhat obscure and confusing book. Others think it’s simply a code-book for figuring out the significance of end time events.

Peterson makes a compelling case that one of the primary purposes of John’s letter was to “encourage Christians to maintain their faith in Christ and resist every temptation to idolatry and apostasy” (p. 277). We still need that kind of encouragement today. And the hymns scattered throughout Revelation (Rev. 1:5-6, 4:11, 5:9-10, 7:11-12, 11:17-18, 15:3-4, 19:6-8), with their focus on the sovereignty of God and the victory of the Lamb, do just that.

In summarizing his chapter on Revelation, Peterson makes application to the songs we sing today:

The hymnic material in the book of the Revelation…should alert us to the importance of singing God’s praise in a way that is truly honoring to him and helpful to his people. Do our hymns and songs concentrate on praising God for his character and his mighty acts in history on our behalf? Do they focus sufficiently on the great truths of the gospel? There is always a temptation to focus too much on the expression of our own immediate needs.

This is gold. Our songs should both honor God and help people. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. We don’t come together merely to sing about how passionate we are for God (although that’s a very good thing!) or to be emotionally affected. Our songs should help us concentrate and focus on God’s character and his mighty acts in history on our behalf, especially the gospel.

One aspect of praise we see in the Psalms involves acknowledging our needs, longings, and desires. But an awareness of our need is meant to drive us to the sufficiency and supply of the gospel – God has clothed himself in flesh! Jesus has perfectly fulfilled God’s law! Christ has suffered and died, becoming sin for us and enduring God’s wrath and judgment in our place! God has raised him from the dead! Jesus is reigning and will one day return to bring salvation to all those who have placed their faith in him! He will right every wrong, establish his unending rule, and be the eternal joy of those who know him! These are truths that are completely outside of us and will never change. Their implications for our lives are massive and eternal. Hope and comfort in trials doesn’t come from continually rehearsing our problems and needs but through remembering the compassionate, all-powerful Savior who cried out “It is finished!” for his people’s joy and his Father’s glory.

Peterson continues:

Is the language we use as powerful and as simple as in the material given to us by John? We need to avoid the extremes of being trite and trivial, and loading our hymns and choruses with so much imagery that only the well-instructed can appreciate them.

This is relevant to both worship leaders and song writers. Our songs ought to be powerful and simple at the same time. Powerful doesn’t equal verbally dense or complex. Simple doesn’t mean repetitive, boring, or trite. We need fresh images and phrases that communicate unchanging biblical truth in clear and compelling ways. “Jesus came my soul to save, then he rose up from the grave,” is gloriously true but perhaps not as informative or gripping as say, “And on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, for every sin on him was laid.” But both are simple.

Finally, Peterson says:

Do our hymns and acclamations help us to rejoice in God’s gracious and powerful rule, acknowledge its blessings and look forward to its consummation in the new creation? Do they challenge us to take a firm stand against every manifestation of Satan’s power and to bear faithful witness to the truth of the gospel in our society? It is not good enough to sing certain items merely because they make the congregation feel good! (p .278)

Peterson’s questions are challenging. They move us away from generalities and towards specifics in our songs. What is good about God’s rule? How do we rejoice in his gracious reign and his opposition to evil? What are the blessings of the consummation? How is Satan’s power manifested in our lives and our world? What are ways we can be faithful witnesses? What will that cost and require?

Of course, songs aren’t the only way we can proclaim these truths to one another. But the hymns of Revelation seem to indicate that they’re meant to be an important way we build up our faith in God’s sovereignty, faithfulness, compassion, and ultimate victory.

So, while Revelation Song may represent one aspect of what we can learn from John’s book, let’s not neglect all the other ways God wants John’s heavenly vision to inform our songs and our lives.

Here’s our latest video from The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11.

As You Go was written by Mark Altrogge, who has been writing songs for Sovereign Grace Music since the early 1980s. That’s a long time. It amazes me how he continues to write such theologically rich, relevant, singable songs.

What you may not know is that even with the decades of experience Mark has, he is one of the easiest people to work with when it comes to suggesting changes to his songs. Rather than giving you a detailed explanation of why he wrote what he did, or sharing 5 reasons why no alternative could possibly be better, he typically gets back in less than 24 hours with 2 or 3 alternatives. That’s one of the reasons he writes such great songs and why I love working with him.

Mark originally called this song Now As You Go, and it was intended to fill the benediction slot on The Gathering. This is the demo he sent.

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We liked it, but it was a little more reflective than what we were looking for. So Mark sent a new version with a completely new melody and altered words.

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You might notice the bridge takes some unusual turns melodically. So I suggested that instead of singing a bridge he just make the song three verses. He did, and that’s how we ended up with the version we recorded for The Gathering.

I love what this song expresses. It captures the mindset we’re to have as we leave our gatherings, whether we sing it or simply hear it spoken to us. God calls us to go into the world to proclaim the gospel and minister his grace and truth to others, but our confidence isn’t in our ability to fulfill what we’ve been commissioned to do. We go assured of the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the power of the Spirit, all enabling us to fulfill God’s purposes in and through us.

Here’s the guitar chart and lead sheet. Lyrics posted below.

As you go, may you know the love of Christ
How deep and long, how high and wide
As you leave, may you seek to win the prize
And find His death to be your life

May you go in the love of your Father God
May you go in the grace of Christ
May you go in the power of the Spirit now
To bring Him glory with your life

As you go, may you know the pow’r of grace
His very strength for what’s to come
As you leave, may you feel His mighty hand
Guiding your steps in the race you run

As you go, may you show His heart to bless
The ones with less, the blind and lost
As you leave, may you be the light of Christ
And show our hope is in the cross
By Mark Altrogge © 2011 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

Mark has also been writing Scripture songs for years for his Hide the Word albums. He’s currently produced ten of them. You can check them out at his website.

Last month I posted two sessions from the pre-conference workshop I taught at WorshipGod11 on the Piano in Contemporary Worship (Part 1 and Part 2). We finally finished editing the third session. This one took a little more time to edit because people were regularly walking past the window of the door in the video, which is a bit distracting. My good friend Dave Mackenzie performed his video wizardry and edited the movement out.

In this session I deal with many of the specific questions I’ve been asked over the years. Those include:

• chord coloring
• inversions
• playing hymns
• developing your chord vocabulary
• introductions
• transitions
• playing behind someone speaking
• modulations.

Along the way I also talk about some of the musical influences that have shaped the way I play.

You can download the outline for all three sessions here. Because Part 3 is close to 90 minutes long, and you may not have time to watch this in one sitting, I’ve provided time markers below for the different sections.

00:00 Chord coloring
00:41 Open 5ths
05:12 Add2
14:35 Add4
18:43 Major 7
21:13 Major 9
23:06 Inversions
28:46 Hymns – Melody driven
33:26 Hymns – Feel-driven
48:10 Developing your ear for new chords
54:21 Developing a new chord vocabulary, my influences
59:20 Intros
1:03:00 Transitions
1:09:55 Playing behind someone speaking
1:17:10 Modulations
1:19:20 Q&A

If you missed it, I recently posted MP3 downloads and outlines for many of the other seminars at WorshipGod11 here and here.

We had our 10th songwriter retreat this past October. In a previous post I shared some details from our 2010 retreat. Since a couple guys have asked me about these recently, here’s a little more info.

Sovereign Grace is a family of over 90 churches. We’ve been producing albums since around 1984. At first, we were simply getting out songs that Mark Altrogge was writing. Songs like “I Have a Destiny,” “In My Generation,” and “You Sat Down.” We started producing “Song Service Tapes” that went to Sovereign Grace churches and anyone else who was interested. Most of them were recorded in Steve and Vikki Cook’s bedroom. (thank you, Vikki…)

It wasn’t too long before others started contributing songs. After about 17 song service tapes we stepped up the production value and started our Come and Worship series in 1997. We occasionally had songwriters from Sovereign Grace churches submit songs to us, but most were written by Mark, the Cooks, and me. From 1997-2003 we produced 10 Come and Worship albums.

In 2001 I met with 6 songwriters and focused not only on our own writing, but also on developing other writers. Out of that came our songwriter retreats.

Initially, we invited the people in Sovereign Grace churches we knew about who were writing songs. The results were mixed. We’d break up into small groups, each led by Mark, the Cooks, or myself, and invite contributions from everyone in the group. Sometimes the advice would be contradictory. “I love the surprising turns in the melody” vs “People will find that impossible to sing.”  We had a hard time finding the balance between being helpful and being “nice.” We leaned towards letting people work on their own songs rather than encouraging writers to collaborate and maximize their strengths. Some people would get input on a song but had a hard time hearing it any way other than the way they originally wrote it.

I realized we should make the retreats less about training writers and more about actually writing. By 2008 we started inviting our best writers, especially those who had songs on an album or who worked well in a group. We typically include some younger promising writers as well.

Our average retreat is about 20 folks. I shared a lot of the pre-retreat planning in my previous post. In brief, I let the writers know what album(s) we’ll be writing for and give them potential resources (books, messages, articles). Writers are free to post songs before the retreat on a community forum powered by phpBB. People post full songs, half-finished songs, lyrics only, or melodic ideas.

We start on a Wednesday night with dinner, conversation, and prayer. One year I showed portions of “The Pixar Story,” to inspire us towards working as a creative community. The next morning we start with breakfast and a time of worship in song. We then head into the evaluation/writing phase.

Mark, Steve, Vikki, and I sit behind a table (a la American Idol) and give feedback on songs written either before or during the retreat. We have lyrics for each song so we can make notes as the song is performed. We’ll comment on everything we think is strong and everything we think is weak. We’re harder on writers initially than we used to be. Thousands of worship songs are written every year, and we just don’t want to put out more songs that sound like 100 other songs. We don’t always succeed, but that’s our goal. We put a lot of weight on the immediate impact of a song. Sometimes a song, or portion of a song, has a great melody that makes you want to sing. In the past we might encourage a writer to work on the lyrics. Now we’re quicker to direct them to collaborate with someone whose strength is words. That approach has proven much to produce better songs. We typically listen to between 30-40 songs at a retreat. (You can download the full schedule from our last retreat here).

While we’re evaluating songs, everyone else is working on writing by themselves, with someone else, or with a group. It’s not uncommon for two folks to be working on a song and for someone else to show up with ideas that improve it. On Friday night or Saturday morning we start recording basic demos of the songs we think are the best ones. These form the basis of demos we use as we plan for albums. We usually record between 10-15 songs. The time between the retreat and release of an album is about 6-7 months.

If you don’t have a panel of experienced songwriters to evaluate songs, you can still benefit from the input of the people at the retreat. After encouraging what can be encouraged, be ruthless about everything else. It’s good to be clear up front that you want to write great songs, not just good ones. A retreat is the place to be overly nit-picky about things like whether lyrics make sense immediately (they should), whether phrases or melodies are trite or common (they shouldn’t be), whether the song is easy and desirable to sing (it should be), whether verb tenses remain consistent (they should), and whether the song says something biblically true and relevant (it should).

We’ve found the hardest part of songwriting is editing. The longer I write and help others write songs, the more I realize that it doesn’t matter how long it takes to write a great congregational song. No one cares. But you usually know it right away when you hear one. Take the time to write, rewrite, and rewrite again, and the fruit will be well worth the investment or time and labor.(The Cooks and Mark Altrogge recently covered this topic at WorshipGod11. Here’s the MP3 and outline.)

All of this takes work, and a lot of humility. It’s one reason we gather in the mornings for prayer and worship in song. We remind ourselves that we exist for Jesus’ glory, not our own, and that while God doesn’t need more songs to proclaim his greatness in Christ, he delights to give us more. Because in all eternity, there will never be enough.

If you have any other questions or comments about song writing retreats, feel free to leave a comment.

A while back I held a contest asking people to send us their arrangements of songs from the Sovereign Grace album, King of Grace. Joshua Spacht won the contest with his version of Behold the Lamb.

He recently sent me a version of another Sovereign Grace song, Behold our God, from Risen, written by Jonathan, Ryan, and Meghan Baird, and Stephen Altrogge. Joshua’s church sang it as part of their Christmas service.

While God doesn’t need orchestras, choirs, and great arrangements to glorify his name, he can certainly use them to communicate grandeur, awe, majesty, and more. I think that’s what Joshua and his musicians accomplished through this version of Behold our God. You can download the orchestra parts for free by right-clicking here.

This past August we recorded The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11. It’s a collection of 15 songs that progressively tell the story of the gospel and our response to it. From my perspective, it’s one of the best albums we’ve done to date, both in terms of song content and creative musicianship.

I’m happy to announce that we’ll be doing it all over again (at least singing the songs) in Orange County, CA on Saturday, January 28.

A few of my good friends from California (Ryan and Jonathan Baird, and Eric Turbedsky, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Orange County) emailed me about putting together an event that combined teaching in the afternoon with an evening of singing through the songs on The Gathering. I thought was a great idea. So we started planning.

Eric Turbedsky put together a cool website that gives you all the info, but here are the basics.

1 PM I’ll be teaching a general session on Why Gospel-Centered Meetings. I’ll share thoughts on why who Jesus is and what he has accomplished should inform not only our songs but everything we do when we gather.
2:15 PM You can pick from 3 seminars – Why Do We Sing? (me), Glad to be a Doorkeeper (Pat Sczebel), and a Band Workshop 1 (led by musicians from Enfield and Sovereign Grace).
3:30 PM Break
4:00 PM Pick from 3 more seminars – Making Room for the Spirit’s Leading (Pat Sczebel), Gathering to Edify (me), and Band Workshop 2 (class participation).
5:15 PM Break for dinner
7:30 PM We’ll be singing the songs from The Gathering album, interspersed with prayer, Scripture, and exhortation. Come expecting Jesus to become more glorious in your mind and heart.

The entire event is only $20 and will take place at Calvary Baptist Church in Huntington Beach, CA.

You can get more info, watch some videos, and register at the conference website. Would love to see more of my West Coast friends there.