Bad worship songs: Trust In God, by Christopher Joel Brown, Steven Furtick, Brandon Lake, Mitch Wong

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, Trust in God.

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Video link.

Lyrics:

vs. 1: Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine
He's been my fourth man in the fire, time after time
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
And what He did for me on Calvary is more than enough

chorus: I trust in God, my Savior
The one who will never fail
He will never fail
I trust in God, my Savior
The one who will never fail
He will never fail

vs. 2: Perfect submission, all is at rest
I know the author of tomorrow has ordered my steps
So this is my story and this is my song
I'm praising my risen King and Savior all the day long

bridge: I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered
I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered
I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered
That's why I trust Him, that's why I trust Him

Overview

We have noted in other reviews that we enjoy the 6/8 (12/8) meter, which is the meter of this song. It flows nicely, with appropriate and welcome pauses in the melody. And those pauses are needed because the song's key is selected for a tenor singer.

We would classify this song as a testimony song. 100% of the lyrics are directed to the congregation. The song is essentially telling people what the songwriters think about God. Because it never addresses God it cannot be regarded as a worship song.

Lyrical Content

This song borrows some lyrics from the hymn "Blessed Assurance." Although it borrows lyrics the subject is not the same. The hymn is about assurance of the believer in salvation and the pleasurable benefits of that assurance, while "Trust in God" is about His faithfulness.

The lyrics are generally Scripturally based, with few doctrinal issues. We are always delighted when there is some substance in song lyrics. It's hard to go wrong when singing Scripture and scriptural principles.

One problem is a bit of Calvinism in the second stanza of verse two: ...the author of tomorrow has ordered my steps, no doubt referring to

Psalm 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.

We are always careful to not automatically insert ourselves into verses that quite possibly are not directed to us. In this case, the verses are about ancient Israel, with some messianic overtones as well. They verse may well apply to Christians in some fashion, but the lyrics of a song is not the place to have a theological debate.

The other lyrical issue is the bridge: 

I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered
That's why I trust Him

It's partly a quote from Scripture:

Ps. 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

We don't think the conclusion is related to the premise. We don’t trust him because heard and he answered, we trust him because of who he is. He made order from chaos, beauty from nothing, and light from darkness. He can be trusted because these things speak to his character and nature. 

We trust him because he is trustworthy.

Answered prayer is a wonderful thing, but even if he doesn't answer we still trust him. Our trust is not contingent on what he does for us. In fact, our trust is rendered to him regardless of circumstance. It's an important distinction.

Lastly, we always have a quibble with song lyrics that mix Scriptural concepts. It's important that song lyrics accurately portray the Scriptures, and not blend concepts together that are not found there. The bridge certainly does mix two concepts, first, seeking the Lord who answers, and second, the reason we trust him. The combination of these two scriptural statements makes an unscriptural statement.

Musical Content

Astonishingly, the entire melody is comprised of three notes! Well, except for a barely sung submediant (6th degree of the diatonic major scale) found at the end of the second and fourth stanzas of the verses. Otherwise, the melody for the entire song is made up solely of variations of the first, second, and third degrees of the scale (in the key of C, the notes C, D, and E.). 

And it works. 

It works because of the underlying harmonic structure. The verse chords are I  vi  IV  I (first inversion) ii  IV (in the key of C the chords are C, Am7 F2, C/E, Dm7 [4], and F2). The chords for the chorus and bridge are almost the same, except for the omission of the I (first inversion) chord (C/E). 

So the three note melody creates tension with the chords as the progression proceeds. 

The first tension is in the first stanza of the first verse, the melody note is D, sounding on the Am7 for the word "mine." D does not fit in the Am7 chord (the notes A, C, E, and G), it's the 4th of this chord, which implies an A suspended chord.

This tension is carried into the next chord (the F2 chord, made up of the notes  F, G, A, and C), for the words "fourth man in the fire." The melody here goes back and forth between the D and the C, repeatedly resolving the tension and repeating it, as the D is the 6th degree of the F chord while the C is the 5th degree.

There are several more harmonic tensions like this all throughout the song, which have the effect of enriching the sound while disguising the very simple melodies. It's all very clever.

Other Factors

The production of the arrangement is not overdone, unlike so many worship songs these days. The instrumentation is somewhat sparse at the beginning of the song, and gradually builds up to the climatic bridge. There is nothing here that would prohibit a church worship team from handling this song with relative ease, if put in a lower, more singable key.

Some people might object to the song because it is a product of Elevation Church, which they think is a false church. We think a song that accurately and appropriately honors God, no matter the source, ought to be considered; but we realize not everyone would agree.

Conclusion

This is not a particularly troublesome song, generally speaking. But it also isn't the sublime, profound expression of worship. Congregations do not need to settle for merely average songs. And they should not. Many new songs come and go, some of which are quite good, while others are suspect or worse. There are thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of songs. therefore, churches should keep their standards high, and offer the best of the best to God in their worship.