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
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Video link.
Lyrics:
Verse 1 - The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now
The Savior knelt to wash our feet
Now at His feet we bow
Verse 2 - The One who wore our sin and shame
Now robed in majesty
The radiance of perfect love
Now shines for all to see
Chorus - Your name, Your name is victory
All praise, will rise to Christ our king
Verse 3 - The fear that held us now gives way
To Him who is our peace
His final breath upon the cross
Is now alive in me
Bridge - By Your spirit I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me
In Your name I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me
Verse 4 - The tomb where soldiers watched in vain
Was borrowed for three days
His body there would not remain
Our God has robbed the grave
Our God has robbed the grave
Overview
This otherwise rhythmically simple song has a twist: The first stanza of the verse is two 4/4 bars, while the second stanza is a 2/4 bar and a 4/4 bar, which truncates the phrase. We generally like it when songwriters play around with phrasing and meter, as long as it doesn't distract the worshiper. But in this case we think it's distracting.
The pentatonic melody of the verses is evocative of early American songs ('Tis A Gift To Be Simple, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and Amazing Grace come to mind). There's a plaintive nature to pentatonic melodies, a sort of unencumbered simplicity that makes singing to the Lord not so much about vocal skill.
The chorus and bridge switch to a contemporary style, however, which we think is a missed opportunity. Although these melodies are good and singable, had the songwriters chosen to stay in the plainer pentatonic style for these sections the song would be more cohesive.
The Music
No vocal pyrotechnics are required for singing this song. The range is manageable, and there are no complicated melodic rhythms. It's refreshing indeed to be able to sing comfortably and easily when we worship. This sort of thing seems to be rather lost in contemporary worship these days.
No vocal pyrotechnics are required for singing this song. The range is manageable, and there are no complicated melodic rhythms. It's refreshing indeed to be able to sing comfortably and easily when we worship. This sort of thing seems to be rather lost in contemporary worship these days.
The chord structure is simple and quite plain, using only four chords:
Verses: IV - vi - V, IV - I
Chorus: IV - I - V
Bridge: I - V - I (first inv.) - IV
The production is generally pretty sparse, which makes it easier for the typical church worship team to present it.
The Lyrics
The musical flaws we have outlined above are really quite minor. And perhaps the lyrical flaws might be considered minor as well. We will leave that up to the reader to decide.
The first thing to note in the lyrics is the change in perspective. The verses are written to address the congregants, referring to God in a descriptive mode. The chorus and the bridge, however, turn to address God directly. Ordinarily this does not bother us greatly, except when addressing the congregants becomes the predominate lyrical technique.
Since we are talking about congregational worship, we think the worship team should be leading the congregation into actual worship. Worship by definition is directed to God. Addressing the congregation via the song's lyric is not worship.
And in this case the remedy is so simple, requiring a handful of modifications:
Verse 1 - Savior, you knelt to wash our feet
Now at your feet we bow
Verse 2 - You are the One who wore our sin and shame
Verse 3 - The fear that held us now gives way
To you who is our peace
Your final breath upon the cross
Is now alive in me
This is a matter of a failure of good songwriting, where it seems lyricists do not slow down to consider the environment where these songs will be performed and the overall thrust of their lyrics. Lyrics not only tell a story, they teach truths. It' certainly not necessary for a worship song to be a theological tour de force, but it does need to be coherent and biblical.
Further, it seems to us that there are lyrical fads that cycle through the contemporary worship scene. One such fad is fear. We first noticed this in "No Longer A Slave to Fear:"
I’m no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God
This lyric is essentially Romans 8:15, so it's not unbiblical. What troubles us is the recurrent theme in worship songs, and in the subject song's lyrics in verse 3 are similarly about fear:
The fear that held us now gives way
To Him who is our peace
Fear in both these songs imply a status prior to salvation. But Scripturally speaking, fear didn't hold us:
Ga. 3:22-23 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. 23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.
It may be true that many people have a fear problem. But all people have a sin problem.
- Cold faith
- Distraction
- Prayerlessness
- False teaching and deception
- Secret sin
- Arrogance, bitterness, resentment, envy, lying, and unforgiveness
- Pursuit of the world
- Lawlessness
Fear, for all the emphasis it receives in contemporary worship songs, is simply not the issue in Scripture these song writers think it is.
Another problematic lyric is from the bridge:
By Your spirit I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
This is another example of certain concepts cycling around in contemporary Christian music. We first remember it from "Raise A Halleluiah:"
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive!
This sounds biblical, but the root of it is in mythology, the phoenix rising from the ashes of its death to live again:
The Phoenix willingly offered itself to be burned by Apollo. The god of light rewarded the bird by allowing it to be reborn into full youth and vigor as the flames burned.
There is no such imagery in the Bible. Rather, ashes are a sign of being in a low position, of mourning, of awareness of sinful status, or particularly, of repentance:
Job 42:6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
The ministry of God's redemptive purpose is to take us out of this state:
Thus a concept from mythology acquires a quasi-biblical status and misleads worshipers to think they are worshiping when in actual fact they are singing about fables.Is. 61:3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes...
Conclusion
Worship song lyrics should not lead us astray or cause questions to arise in mid-worship. Thus we should use discernment when choosing worship songs.
There's a lot of new worship songs out there, but good worship music seems to be getting harder to find. Our viewpoint has been evolving as we have pursued our "Bad Worship Songs" series. We are less willing to compromise when it comes to unsingable melodies and vapid lyrics.
The last few worship songs we reviewed are attractive, but it to us they are superficial. They sound good to the ear, and they sound spiritual, perhaps even powerful, but frequently there is an emptiness or a subtle miss on one or more doctrinal points.
They aren't necessarily bad worship songs so much as they are inadequate. That's the issue. Many contemporary worship songs are inadequate. It seems to us that given the 2000 years of experience the church possesses, it ought to be expressing the most sublime, powerful worship ever in history. If we are building on what our predecessors have done, we should be going farther than they went.
But we aren't.
So today's song isn't a bad song. It's just inadequate. We cannot recommend it.
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