Bad worship songs: Praise Goes On - by Brown/Furtick/Joye

Audio link.

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned? 

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song. Praise Goes On has a catchy beat and slick production. But... it's a bad worship song.

You might also want to check out our criteria for judging worship songs.

First the lyrics:

[Verse 1:]
Here in your light we find, what makes us come alive
A sacrifice of praise

A city on a hill, surrendered to your will
Your glory on display, Your glory on display

[Pre-Chorus:]
Awesome in this place
Jesus you are awesome in this place
Worthy to be praised
Jesus you are worthy to be praised

[Chorus:]
You will be praised

[Verse 2:]
Your love a force of grace, consuming every space
It's uncontainable
You're coming like a flood, our hearts are filling up
All things are possible, all things are possible

[Bridge:]
Your praise goes on and on, forever more
We lift the name of Jesus
Your kingdom come, is what we're living for
We lift the name of Jesus 

Now, it would be easy to nitpick this song, and we shall try our best to resist doing that. A worship song doesn't have to be a theological treatise, nor does it need to be a musical construction worthy of Handel. But it does need to be theologically correct, lyrically coherent, musically interesting, and facilitate worship and praise in the congregation.

Let's take the opening lines of the first verse: Here in your light we find, what makes us come alive; a sacrifice of praise. Read it out loud. Again. Does it make any sense? What exactly is the song's lyricist saying? Apparently we discover something in the light of God's presence, and it's something that enlivens us: Our praise. So it isn't the Holy Spirit who makes us alive in Christ and moves within us. No, our praise does this. WE make us alive. Or something.

Thankfully, the pre-chorus gives us reprieve. A simple and clear statement of the greatness of Jesus, albeit with a very basic melody that follows the root of the chord. In addition, a little mixed meter (3/4, 5/4, 3/4, 5/4) here adds interest, though not everyone will be happy with the disruption, which can force congregants to intellectually contend with the interrupted flow this causes. 

But then we come to the chorus, a single repeated line: You will be praised. It is indeed true the God will be praised. We ask the song's lyricist: When? When will He be praised? Is the purpose of this song to express praise, or to tell us that at some future time He will be praised?

Now we come to verse 2. The opening stanzas are Your love a force of grace, consuming every space; it's uncontainable. Hmm. This sentence is even more inscrutable than verse one. We have no idea what Your love a force of grace means. Does it mean that His love springs forth from His grace? And we have no idea how His love consumes every space.  Does this mean God's love occupies every geographic location? And lastly, we have no idea how His love is uncontainable. All this almost sounds like Calvinistic irresistible grace. In any case, a lyric in a worship song ought not cause us to puzzle; instead, it ought to draw out fitting praise to God.

The second half of verse two provides us with even more obtuse statements: You're coming like a flood, our hearts are filling up; all things are possible, all things are possible. The first clause, You're coming like a flood, is biblically wrong. Almost all references to coming like a flood (Job 27:20, Ps. 88:17, Is. 59:19, Da. 9:26, Da. 11:40, and Ho. 5:10) refer to calamity, judgment, or the end of days. 

A similar concept is found if you word-search the Bible for "waters." Most of the time, it's a bad thing. For example, Ps. 32:6: Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. Not to belabor the point, but it is clear that loose song lyrics like this do not convey appropriate thoughts in a worship setting.

Moving on. Next we need to ask, with what are our hearts filling up? And how does that make all things possible? 

Finally, the bridge. Not heretical, but not deep. A minor beef with this is that the two stanzas are not related to each other. In fact, as we step back to survey the message of the entire song, we discover there isn't any. None of the lyrics relate to any of the others. There is no development of an idea, nor is there a the telling of a story. It's almost like a bunch of quasi-religious phrases were tossed into a hat and pulled out in random order.

Unfortunately, these things are becoming more and more common in contemporary worship music. We cannot recommend this song.