Bad worship songs - Glory and Wonder, by Mosaic MSC

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, Glory and Wonder.

Video link.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Jesus, Light of heaven, lover of the lost
Jesus, perfect love, You meet us where we are
You came to us to show the love of God
You came to us no matter what the cost

[Verse 2]
Jesus, Light of heaven, lead us to Your heart
Jesus, greatest love You take us as we are
You come to us when all our strength is gone
You come to us, with You we overcome

[Chorus]
Take this heart and show it how to beat
All You are is who I wanna be
I give You my love completely

[Verse 3]
Jesus, sound of joy, the sweetest harmony
You came for us to set the world free
God of heaven, come alive in me

[Bridge]
All the glory and wonder
Overcome my deepest fears
Oh God our loving Father
You have come to meet me here

[Outro]
Jesus, Light of heaven, lover of the lost
Perfect love, You meet us where we are

Overview

We are not impressed with this song, and we will be quite direct, and perhaps a little harsh. We don't wish to dishonor the songwriters or performers, but we are pressed to honestly evaluate the song and them.

Perhaps the most obvious thing regarding this song is that it has absolutely nothing to say. The numerous lyrics are comprised of amorphous statements that could mean anything. The song is a rhetorical equivalent of an empty suit, meaning the lyrics are so non-specific that a worshiper could simply insert just about any meaning into what the woman is singing.

Speaking of the singer, again we don't wish to dishonor her, but she sort of mumbles through the words, singing in a pitchy child's voice. There's a superficial reverence in the band's performance, but in actual fact it comes off as a formulaic, pale imitation of a hundred other worship bands. The chords, the production, the orchestration, and the visual presentation in the white room with the band's rapturous facial expressions, all of it comes off as derivative posturing.  

The Music

There is nothing offensive here, but there is nothing innovative, clever, or delightful either. The song begins without an intro, the piano playing nothing but quarter notes in a repeated I - IV progression with two tags vi - IV - I to end the verses. The stanzas are three bars long, which is not the typical four bar. We might ordinarily give the songwriters a bit of credit here, but the missing bar makes the stanza awkward and truncated. The is a quiet worship song, and rhythmic disruptions are out of place here.

The chorus is simplistic. Not simple, that means something else. Simplistic is not simplicity. We are in favor of simplicity, we certainly prefer simplicity to the saturated, overproduced arrangements that seem so popular today. However, we deem the song simplistic by lack of inspiration rather than being simple by choice. 

There is an odd and uncomfortable melodic leap in the third stanza of the chorus, which tries to be musically interesting but ends up feeling awkward and imitative. Like the verse, it also has the effect of truncating the phrase, which then must play out to its end in a sustained chord to make it fit.

The chorus chords are IV - I - F, repeated, with a IV - vi - Vsus - V turnaround.

After the chorus there's a instrumental interlude that actually has some musical interest. It's a broken piano arpeggio that plays on the up-beat, and it's actually quite nice until the singer joins in unison pitch with a crackly and out of tune "agh-agh-agh."

The bridge is where things open up a little bit and the singer shows she can actually produce a full, pleasant tone. We are happy to discover that she actually has some skills. The chords are IV - vi - I - V.

After several times through various lyrical and chordal variations the bridge dissolves into another instrumental. We say "dissolves" because the singer holds a pitch that morphs into a shriek as she fades out. 

The Lyrics

The performance aspect of this song doesn't have to be replicated by worship teams. So that is ultimately not problematic. A more thoughtful and beautiful arrangement is within the reach of most worship bands. 

But regarding the lyrics, no. Bands simply do not change the lyrics. Above we noted the superficiality of the lyrical concepts expressed. This lack of substance does have a benefit, however: There is little chance of heretical content. But that is a matter of no commendation, for the vague, substanceless content means we're essentially singing nothing. 

Even the title leads us astray, for it's not a song that extolls the Glory and wonder of God.

Upon deeper examination of the content, we find that there are no actual statements of praise or worship, let alone expressions of biblical principles. There are no statements that enlighten the soul or inform the mind. In fact, there are no statements about God that occur apart from how the songwriters feel they are impacted personally. 

Perhaps the most egregious example is in the bridge:

All the glory and wonder

Overcome my deepest fears

The lyric is misleading. It's not a statement of worship, the subject actually is the songwriters' fear. Thus it is a statement about the benefit to the songwriters. 

And really, it's a nonsense statement. The first stanza masquerades as an expression of worship, from which a congregant might expect to lead to a summation, perhaps like "All the glory and wonder **belong to You, my loving savior**" or something similar. But that's not what the songwriters did. It's as if they wrote the first stanza one day and the next day wrote the second stanza, forgetting what they did the previous day. The stanzas do not connect.

The result is, "glory" and "wonder" are the remedy for the songwriters' fears. How does this happen? Unknown. In the case of "glory," that often tends to elicit fear from those who experienced it. And regarding wonder, isn't that a human's response to the revelation of glory? Putting this together, the glory caused wonder which overcame the songwriters' fears. Or something.

Were they trying to be innovative in expressing their faith using atypical phrases? Or maybe they just put some spiritual sounding words together? Really, what does this mean?

We know we are overanalyzing this, but worship songs should not introduce uncertainty. We should not be yanked out of worship to wonder what we are singing about. "Oh, it probably means such and such" is not acceptable. We do not do fill-in-the-blanks worship.  

Also, fear is the situation being overcome. We have observed elsewhere in our blog that fear is a theme gaining a lot of traction in contemporary worship. We don't actually mind that songwriters are writing about overcoming fear. But while perhaps some Christians have a fear problem, all men have a sin problem. If the glory of God overcomes something, it most certainly would be sin.

A second example is variations of the statement contained in verse one:

You came to us to show the love of God

Is this really why Jesus came? In a vague sense, yes. But this another unnecessarily superficial statement regarding much deeper thing. Let's contrast the songwriters' statement with Jesus' own words: 

Lk. 12:51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 

Jn. 18:37 You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. 

Mt. 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.

Jn. 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 

Lk. 12:49 I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Jn. 9:39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Jn. 12:46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

A third example, Jesus, Light of heaven. Jesus is the light of the world, certainly, but He is never described as the light of heaven. Could it be inferred that Jesus is currently emanating light in heaven? Yes, in that He is part of the godhead:

1Ti. 6:15-16 ...God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no-one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might for ever.

There will be a time when the sun and moon have passed and the Lamb is the light for the holy city:

Re. 21:23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

However, Christians naturally recognize Jesus as the light of the world. So to change the word to "heaven" once again creates uncertainty.

As we survey other song lyrics, we find they identify several things Jesus does for us, but none of them seem to be about His glory and wonder, or in fact, about Him at all:

• You meet us where we are (Where exactly were we when He met us?)
• You came to us no matter what the cost (Is this a reference to His death on the cross? The lyric almost sound like the cost varies.)
• You take us as we are (This is a near repetition of "meet us." But He doesn't do this. We were dead and He makes us alive. The new man belongs to Him and the old man dies.)
• when all our strength is gone (We use up our strength and then He comes?)
• show it how to beat (Our heart needs to know how to beat?)
• to set the world free (Free from what? Or for what?)

We certainly don't expect a theological tour de force, but the opportunity to write a worship song comes with a responsibility to say something edifying as well as coherent. Especially given the number of words in the song.

Ultimately, these are all minor problems. But there is a cumulative effect. Especially considering the number lyrics, the song could have been so much better if the songwriters took advantage of the opportunity.

Conclusion

This song is simply a pale imitation of a worship song. It seems to hit all the right notes, grows to a pinnacle at the right place, and the lyrics sound vaguely spiritual. It has all the trappings but none of the substance.

We cannot recommend it.