The State of Contemporary Worship Lyrics

Because I too am disinterested in God-songs that feel secondhand. Because a secondhand encounter with the living YHWH is not the inheritance of the saints.

However, the modern worship song uses plagiarism as shorthand. It has become self-referential beyond measure:

You know The Formula: a verse with a scenario that is as nondescript as possible—“every trial, every season,” etc. Time is not articulated in any tangible sense; it’s forever, or always. A chorus with a soaring melody that might have rich lyrics or might not; words are not the point. The melody is. A bridge that can be repeated endlessly, because there is no movement in its ideas—like the chorus, lyrics serve as vassal to the melody. All of this is then dressed up in world-class production and band arrangements that are skilled at building atmospheric intensity

Art itself is meant to bear image across its many forms. Music does this. I’ve often said it is one of the most beautiful ways of enacting the Shema; what Jesus calls the greatest commandment: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.

Instead, he paints…“her nightmares grew fingers” (I challenge you to find a more vivid image wrought with four words). Or

fact. People find it safe (and therefore, harmless) to use them. But, in fact, they can actually be dangerous. The last thing we want in our encounters with the God of the Universe is spiritual and emotional autopilot

maturity. Hence the language of “every trial, every season, every battle.” They are (quite nobly) trying to reach everyone. However, life is not made up of the lowest common denominator moments

Ridding ourselves of The Formula cannot be done through yet another overly critical piece on the state of contemporary worship, by an author who offers no help or solution. No, the answer lies in revived imaginations, in desiring to tread the deep waters of this wild, beautiful, fractured world that we have been placed into as heirs. It is

How will we arrive there? It will take both time and hunger. By steeping ourselves in the sacred abiding acts of the Word, and prayer, and community; but also observing and enjoying the “secular” realities of the cinema, the kitchen conversation, the hospital, the parking lot. We need to be listening and filling ourselves with that which points us to the transcendent through the beautiful. Lifts us to it. Until we bleed it.

We’ve traded Your bread and wine For the meals that go down smooth We cashed the cheapest vouchers Spent them with no thought of You