28 Apr, 2009
Announcing the Sovereign Grace Songwriting Contest Winner
Posted by: Bob Kauflin In: —Contests|—Song Downloads|—Songwriting
What? You say you didn’t even know we had a songwriting contest?
No surprise. It was pretty low key. At the start of 2009, I sent out an email to the Sovereign Grace worship leaders announcing a contest for 14-22 year old songwriters. The rules were pretty simple. Submit up to two original congregational songs by mid-February. The winner would receive an ESV Study Bible and a $50 iTunes certificate.
Among the promising entries were At the Cross by J’Nelle Smith and You Will Sustain by Philip VanderWeide.
But the winner was 22 year old Peter (PJ) Kemerer of Corning, NY who sent in Gift of Grace. It’s an uptempo 6/8 song that focuses on the miracle of grace. Here are the lyrics:
VS1
God of endless design, sculpting worlds and stars
Weaving threads of Your likeness in every heart
Can it be, heaven’s King came for one like me?
I will worship You who created me
What a glorious gift of grace
You have freely given hopeless sinners life
I will gladly give You all my praise
King of glory, Jesus Christ
VS2
God who never began, born a man to die
Heaven’s Lamb sent to man as a sacrifice
Can it be, such a Savior has bought my peace?
I will live for You, God who died for me
BRIDGE
You deserve all my praise, You deserve all my love
You deserve all my life, I give You all of me
You deserve all my praise, You deserve all my love
You deserve all my life, I give You all of me
Words and Music by Peter Kemerer. Copyright 2009 Sovereign Grace Praise.
I appreciated a number of things about the song.
- I wanted to sing as soon as I heard it.
- The lyrics stay focused on one theme and don’t wander aimlessly or try to cover multiple topics.
- The song contains creative words and phrases that you don’t normally hear in a song. Like endless design, sculpting, and weaving.
- The use of creativity doesn’t obscure theological faithfulness. So to communicate that we’re made in God’s image he writes, “Weaving threads of Your likeness in every heart.” Very nice.
- The song contains both objective truths and subjective responses.
- The melody is strong and memorable.
- Vs 2 does a great job highlighting various aspects and implications of the gospel.
- The production on the song was creative and varied. And done on an iMac.
You can download the song here, and download the guitar chart here.
