Bad worship songs: Elohim - Bethel Music, Aubree Archibeck

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, Elohim.

Video link.

Lyrics

Verse 1

Time and time again, we've asked if You are able

Time and time again, You've proved
You're the God of our salvation and worthy of our praises
Time and time again, we worship You

Pre-chorus

Anyone with eyes can see a mountain

But anyone with faith will see it move

Chorus

Elohim, You're the God who goes before me

And Prince of Peace, and my heart has found a home
You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
There's no end to who You are
There's no limit to Your throne

Verse 2

Merciful and true, God of every virtue

The solid rock we're standing on
You're holy and You're kind, the epitome of light
We magnify the worthy One
We magnify the worthy One

Bridge
No one is higher, God our provider
Prince of Peace
You're good beyond measure, worthy forever
Elohim

Overview

We should say that this is not necessarily a bad worship song. It does a lot of things very well and does not contain what we would consider to be heresy. 

This song seems to be be part of a trend in worship videos in that the audio doesn't feel like live performance. Or perhaps in this case we should say that there appears to be a lot of post-production work done. 

Like the lead vocal. The audio does properly sync to the video, which suggests that what we are hearing is actually what was being sung, but the performance is perfectly, even unnaturally, on pitch. Which means that the audio was pitch-corrected in post and not what the crowd heard.

The Performance

Here's a screenshot of the band: 

We see keys, electric guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, violin, drums, three people who have mics, and a dancer. But what do we actually hear? Aside from the intro when we briefly get to hear the acoustic guitar, for the remainder of the song  the audio will pretty much be the lead vocal, drums and synth pads. 

We see camera angles of the electric guitar playing things, but the mix contains almost no electric guitar. And no bass guitar either, which is sorely needed to supply the bottom end. No one else is heard singing. Aside from some barely audible violin close to the end, it's also absent.

There is no indigo lighting or strobes, happily. But there's a lot of mild shaky cam, which is a substantial irritant.

The Music

Though song is in a minor key, we're going to provide the harmonic structure as if the song was in the relative major. 

Verse chords: vi - I/3rd in bass - IV - vi - I/3rd in bass - IV - vi - IV - vi - I - IV

Pre-chorus chords: V - I/3rd in bass - IV - V - I/3rd in bass - ii

Chorus chords: vi - V - I - IV -vi - V - I -IV - V - iv - V - I ii - I - vi - IV - ii - vi

Bridge chords: vi - V - IV - vi - V - IV 

Bridge 2 chords: IV - vi - I - ii

There are some chord variations as the song progresses, as well as chord extensions, which we've omitted for simplicity.

A fairly common technique in contemporary worship music is starting the melody low and then jumping up an octave as the song's intensity increases. But often the song is not comfortable to sing in either register. This song is not as bad as some others, but nevertheless there are a few notes that are reaches high and low. We think that a song that is musically well written should not require octave changes. A good worship melody would fit the somewhat limited vocal range of the average congregant.

Bottom line: a good melody is not necessarily a good congregational melody.

The Lyrics

As we stated above, there are no real doctrinal concerns here. We will note some minor problems, however.

Verse 1

In the first stanza the songwriter forces the congregation to sing about actions and motives that they might not possess:

Time and time again, we've asked if You are able

This is a statement of faith uncertain, thus the congregation participates in singing about something they might not be experiencing. We think worship songs should avoid expressing personal experiences as if they are universal.

We shall be lenient here, however, because the statement leads into proper statements of worship, including a Bible quote:

You're the God of our salvation 

This sort of thing gladdens our heart.

The Chorus 

Here we find the first reference to the title of the song, Elohim. This is an untranslated Hebrew word meaning "gods." In the OT the word mostly refers to the supreme God. It is plural, which speaks to His multi-faceted nature, or perhaps is even a foreshadowing of the coming revelation of the trinity.

The history of Christian music is replete with the usage of untranslated names and titles for God, like El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Yahweh, Jireh, and many others. We don't necessarily have a problem with this, other than the fact that an untranslated ancient word really doesn't have meaning unless the congregant has studied it or it has been explained. And it's perhaps a bit gimmicky.

The reason we wrote this post is the last two stanzas of the chorus:

 

There's no end to who You are

There's no limit to Your throne

The songwriter is proven to be capable of writing biblical lyrics, so these two statements, though not heretical are superficial, vague statements about God's nature. Regarding the first, when we think of God being beyond end what we are really saying is that He possesses unending ability, unchanging nature, or unending eternality. The lyrics might be one of these or something else entirely. It's a little too unspecific for our taste.

The second one irritates us, again for its non-specificity, but also because it is not biblical language. A throne with no limits is nonsensical, it's an obtuse reference to God's limitless kingship. 

We think the songwriter could have done better with these two stanzas.

Verse 2

It starts with several very solid and biblical phrases, until the third stanza:

the epitome of light

"Epitome" means "a typical or ideal example: an example that represents or expresses something very well: embodiment." God is not the ideal example of light. He is not the embodiment of light. He is not the expression or representation of light, the light expresses or representative of Him. 

This is a fairly significant (and unnecessary) mistake. The songwriter could have wrote something like, 

in the darkness you're the light

or

you alone are light

We sincerely believe that a worship song should not yank the congregant out of worship in order to figure out the meaning of song lyrics.

Bridge

The declarative bridge is well written and a perfect lead-in to the recapitulation of the chorus. It does exactly what a bridge is designed to do.

We find it a bit ironic that one of the bridge lyrics (unintentionally?) references another Hebrew-lyric'd song, Jehovah Jireh, which means "the Lord will provide:"

God our provider

Conclusion

As mentioned, this is not a bad worship song. It has minor deficiencies. It actually does what a worship song must do, and that is to express directly to God His magnificence, to recount His mighty deeds, and to elevate His name in highest honor.

We will let the reader decide if the song is worthy of being added to the song list.