Bad worship songs: Rooftops - (Jesus Culture) by Jonathan Berlin, Lindsey Sweet, and Ben Williams

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, Rooftops.

Video link.

Lyrics:

Verse 1: Here I am before You
Falling in love and seeking Your truth
Knowing that Your perfect grace
Has brought me to this place
Because of You I freely live
My life to You, O God, I give
So I stand before You, God
I lift my voice 'cause You set me free

Chorus: So I shout out Your name
From the rooftops I proclaim
That I am Yours, I am Yours

Verse 2: All the good You've done for me
I lift up my hands for all to see
You're the only one
Who brings me to my knees
To share this love across the earth
The beauty of Your holy word
So I kneel before You, God
I lift my hands 'cause You set me free

Bridge: Here I am, I stand
With arms wide open
To the One, the Son
The everlasting God
The everlasting God

Overview

Like many worship songs from Jesus Culture, this song sounds good, it's catchy, and it has a great hook. And also like many worship songs from Jesus Culture, it is overly self-referential. I, my, and me appear 20 times in 23 stanzas, not including repeated lyrics. This self-focus is allowable up to a point, but remember, this song is a song for congregational worship, so it must be about God and directed to God.

This for us is a key qualification, and this song fails.

The Bible passage the song hints at is

Mt. 10:26-27 So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

As the reader can see, the biblical proclamation from the rooftops has nothing to do with us belonging to Jesus, it is about the apostles proclaiming the truths of God without fearing evil men.

When a worship song connects Bible verses to unrelated concepts it reinforces false understandings of Bible verses. This must not happen. Now, we certainly understand the songwriters' desire to proclaim something from the rooftops. However, songs with Bible allusions need to speak accurately about the thing being alluded to. 

Further, the songwriters chose this particular thing to proclaim, that they belong to God. While we would not necessarily quibble with this choice, if we were to consider what things we would want to proclaim from the rooftops, belonging to God would likely not be in the top ten. But that's just us.

The Music

Chords: 

Verse: vi - V(sus) - IV - V

Chorus: I - V - vi - IV - ii

Bridge: I - vi - IV - ii

No surprises here. The chords are basic and pretty much change every two measures, which means the song is easy to play. Plus since the lead singer is an alto, there's no vocal pyrotechnics that demand the congregation to sing like professionals.

The song is a straight-ahead eighth note pattern, but the bridge has some pushes that bring rhythmic variation. These pushes add a dimension of interest that makes the song fun to sing. 

Lyrics

It seems the whole song is devoted to what "I" am doing or intend to do. "My" responses, "my" reasons, "my" desires. There are some statements of praise, but almost always they are connected to something "I" said, did, or will do. It is telling that if "I" were to be deleted from the lyrics, the whole song would fall apart. 

Aside from this and the errant reference to rooftops, there is a couple of particularly problematic lyrics:

I lift up my hands for all to see

This is not why we lift our hands. The lifting of hands is to worship or surrender to God, not to advertise our devotion to God. It seems likely that the main reason for this self-aggrandizing lyric is because it rhymes with "me" from the previous stanza.

Even the songwriters understand why we lift hands, because in the last stanza of the second verse we find this: 

I lift my hands 'cause You set me free

The second lyric is  

Knowing that Your perfect grace 

Has brought me to this place 

Many Christians confuse grace and mercy, and misdefine them at that. Mercy is not punishing evil deeds. Grace is to draw near with blessings and closeness. 

So perfect grace doesn't "bring me" anywhere, it is God present. 

Conclusion

Worship songs must proclaim the wonders of God. There is little need to mention "I" at all, except perhaps for expressions of thanksgiving.

We cannot recommend this song.