Original v Music Industry songs
Pause for a moment and consider these questions:
- How often do we sing original home-grown songs in my church?
- Does our church have its own sound, or do we sound like another ministry or movement (eg. Hillsong; Soul Survivor; Jesus Culture; Passion)
- Does my church actively encourage or equip songwriters within our church?
I think that for a very long time, churches have been surviving on a diet of 'industry generated' songs which lead to a faxcimilied expression of worship. I believe it is vtially improtant for churches to protect their own identities, as people, communities and countries are all very different. God loves diversity, he loves all his children - after all he created each of us, unique and individual. I also believe God loves all the good bits of the varios cultures and languages around the world. And as a result our worship meeds to reflect this.
If all we are is a carbon-copy of a mega church somewhere in Australia or America, we are not reaching our full potential as an effective representation of Christ within our local communities. Home-grown songs play a vitally important role in helping local churches maintain their own identiy and sound. They are birthed through particular journeys that individuals, or goups are facing within a church community. Issues they are facing, things God is specifically doing or saying to that particular group of believers.
I know home-grown songs can be risky as quite often some of the songwriters may be inexperienced and may not sound like their songs would 'fit' with the rest of the set, or they would not 'sound right' on a CD. But is church about making CDs or about effectively reaching and ministering to those people around you? With help and a bit of guidance, the budding songwriter can be encouraged and taught how to get better at their craft. Soon you won't be able to tell the difference between a song from a CD and a song someone in your congregation has written!
Invest in the gifts and talents in the songwriters and poets in your church and watch them flourish! Start to singn songs that truly reflect your local community's journey of faith!
When I choose the worship songs for our church I use this formula:
ReplyDeleteEach service has a theme or is set around a particular bible reading which will link in with the preaching. Therefore when choosing the worship songs I research the words 1st. Then I look at the tune, is it suitable for the part of the service that I intend to use it for, if it isn’t very well known – Is it sing-able? I am keen that the words are not lost through stress, worry or frustration about a bad or difficult to sing tune. When the words and music are right all is wonderful and we can praise God.
None of this answers the questions however, I doesn’t matter to me where the song came from as long as it is the right song for the service at the time. I do believe that we should be encouraging home-grown song writing. From personal experience I know a couple of people who are not able to write the music but have a gift for words so when they write I add the original music for them.
If we had someone in the congregation with a musical gift, but not necessarily a gift for lyrics, the obvious conclusion would be to encourage a collaboration. It would be easy for me to simply just not choose the commercial worship songs but our congregation like most of them and it’s not my place to censor the music.
It has to be said though, whenever I write a new worship song the congregation look forward to it and talk about for weeks after and keep asking when we’re going to sing it again. I am under no illusion about the professional quality of my worship songs, however from the congregations point of view there is something special about singing something written by someone in their own church.
Some great advice Adrian. Thanks
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