Chris Tomlin – How Great Is Our God

There is this weird love/hate/love relationship between worship leaders and Chris Tomlin in the church today. I’m not sure if it’s that we love his songs but hate his popularity, love his songwriting but hate his (perceived) simplicity, love his songs but hate his success -- I don’t know. There are lots of blogs, articles, websites out there dedicated to tearing down Chris and his shallow ministry -- I was sent one again earlier this week and reminded at how we seem to be so, so willing to grab at any piece of inadequacy to try and tear apart someone’s success.

Listen, I’m no rah-rah cheerleader for Chris Tomlin but I do know this: more often than not, if I do a Chris Tomlin song with our church they are singing their hearts out for the glory of God. As a worship leader, what more could I ask for? Why do I care whether the last word of each line rhymes? Why do I care whether the melody is simple or not? Why do I care whether his range is three steps too high for any normal male to sing?

All I care is that I am putting words in the mouths of the people of this church which give God glory, stir the hearts of people toward Christ and proclaim the gospel to those who don’t know Him. If it takes famous songs, unknown songs, songs you’ve heard on the radio or songs you’re writing in your basement, I don’t care -- I’m going to find a way to get my people to sing them.

As I was reading that article this week which talked about the absolute shame of Chris’ writing, someone sent me another link. This time it was a video of Chris and his band leading “How Great Is Our God.” If your church is like ours, you’ve sung that song a million times and you’ve probably questioned whether or not you should actually sing it half of the times that you did. But.. give yourself a few minutes and watch this video. Hear the song again for the first time, if you can. I know that’s what I did when I watched it earlier this week.

Forget, if you can, that it’s Chris Tomlin who wrote that song. Imagine it was (insert your favourite songwriter here) or someone from your church or someone from your family. Wouldn’t you be on your knees thanking God that He had delivered that song to the writer and now you are able to share that song with your church? That was honestly the response I had this week when I watched that video.. God, thank You for Chris Tomlin, for his talent, for his dedication, for his willingness and eagerness to see the church give You praise.

“Everlasting Light” from WorshipRises

“Everlasting Light” from WorshipRises
Co-written by Drew Brown (music director at The Meeting Place in Winnipeg, MB – blog|facebook|twitter), Bob Cottrill (worship pastor at North Park Church in London, ON), Luke Holst (ministry intern at West Park Church in London, ON) and Keith Sparrow (worship pastor at The Campus Community Bible Church in Aurora, ON – twitter)

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“Worship Rises” on CCLI

Thanks to the fine people over at CCLI.com and CCLI.tv for featuring the video of “Worship Rises” on their websites. My friend (and co-writer) Joshua Seller led this song at a Harvest Bible Chapel conference in Chicago and the Harvest folks were kind enough to share the video.

You can watch the video over at CCLI.tv by following this link – http://www.ccli.com/CCLITV/Default.aspx?v=11db77d0-c0b4-43c2-8ba6-6a1f8169fb42

This song is part of a movement of worship pastors/leaders from across Canada who have come together to begin writing songs for the Canadian church. We’re excited about releasing a 4-song EP this summer and can’t wait for you to hear the songs. Lots more news coming about WorshipRises very soon.

Video – “Made Us Alive” by Michael Bleecker & Seth Jones

Additional resources for this song here -- http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/worship/?p=168

WorshipRises

For the last year or so I’ve been dreaming about what it would look like to be involved in a movement to bring together worship pastors/leaders from all over Canada to develop worship resources for & from the Canadian church. That dream has been born in something we’ve been calling WorshipRises.

You may have heard me mention here on the blog or on twitter about some co-writing I’ve been doing with friends – the bigger story is that we have been pulling together worship leaders from all kinds of churches to write songs for the broader church. This has been quite the adventure and people from coast to coast are excited about this.

Tomorrow, we’ll be gathering over 30 worship pastors/leaders together in St. Catharines, Ontario for our next WorshipRises songwriting day. Men, women, younger, older, black, white, hispanic, conservative, charismatic – and everything in between. This is going to be a gathering that is an incredible reflection of God’s Kingdom and the uniqueness of the church in Canada. Our hope and prayer is that we would be writing songs that would give a voice to our congregation, inspiring and allowing them to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

Pray for us. Pray that God would unite hearts. Some of us have written together before, some of us are great friends, some of us will be meeting for the first time in about 9 hours. Pray that our desire would not be to lift our own talents and abilities but to lift up the name of Christ. Pray that our eyes wouldn’t be turned to the flashiest lyric or the funkiest chord but would be turned to Christ, our strength, our shelter, our redeemer.

You will be hearing more about WorshipRises in the weeks and months to come. There are several conversations happening that will lead to some very exciting opportunities for these songs and for the church in Canada. Everyone involved in this is through-the-roof excited and we can’t wait to see what God is going to do in us and through us as we stay faithful to His calling.

If you’re interested in following the journey of our songwriting day tomorrow, you can follow any of these twitter accounts or just set up a twitter search for the #worshiprises hashtag. There will be lots of good conversation flying around tomorrow!

Worship Rises – video

Over the past several months I’ve been part of a group of Canadian worship leaders and pastors who have been getting together to write songs “for & from the Canadian church.” This has been an incredible opportunity for all of us and, on some level, I can’t believe that it’s actually working the way that it is.

One of the songs that came out of our first songwriting day together is called “Worship Rises” – it’s a song that I co-wrote with my friends Joshua Seller and Kevin Pauls. The beautiful thing about this song is that we have named this collective of writers WorshipRises so this song has become a bit of an anthem for everyone involved in this project.

Our hope is that these songs will be released to the Canadian church as a resource for worship leaders and congregations, that God would be honoured and glorified by these songs and that the Canadian church would find their own “worship voice”, knowing that God is doing very unique things in her midst.

Here’s a video of Joshua introducing “Worship Rises” at his church, Harvest Bible Chapel in Oakville, Ontario, this past Sunday –

Catalyst Music Project

You may be familiar with the Catalyst Conference movement and all the cool stuff they’re up to. One of the new things they’ve just launched is the Catalyst Music Project. While I’m not crazy about the 18-page publishing contract that the winner has to sign, I do think that they are on to something very, very cool.

Check it out here – www.catalystmusicproject.com

We believe there are new anthems and worship songs being written on the hearts of our generation across this nation and around the world. This is a call to leaders who have a vision to share these songs with the body of Christ.

Catalyst Music Project | Aaron Keyes from Catalyst on Vimeo.

If you follow my twitter you know that I’ve been really excited about something called WorshipRises – I’m intrigued by some of the things Aaron is saying in this video and how much it resonates with some of the things going on in my own heart and mind right now. I’m excited to see the steps of this journey as Catalyst begins to uncover some of what God is doing in and through worship leaders around the world.

Writing Contemporary Worship Music: A Webinar

From The Talking Mirror whose motto is ‘we lie because the truth hurts too much’ – brilliant!

You’ve got a problem.  You feel the Lord calling you to a career as a chart-topping, face-shredding rock star, but you feel guilty about the sex, drugs, and sex that inevitably accompany super stardom.  Your solution?  Become a worship leader!  Get the groupies, the Facebook fanpages, and the all-you-can-drink booze buffets you’ve always wanted while keeping your conscience squeaky clean!

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First you want to state who your song is addressed to.

Jeeeeesuuuuus.

To avoid confusion, you will then want to distinguish this Jesus from the one who mows your lawn.

Sovereign Lord of all creation.

…

Regardless of your song’s message, the chorus should always follow the same format: repeated shouts of adoration intermingled with requests that those in attendance join you in singing.  If you have trouble coming up with the right words, feel free to borrow liberally from other musicians.

Jesus, you’re so hiiiiiigh, high above me / you’re so lovely! / Sing it with me! / You’re so hiiiiigh, high above me / you’re so lovely.

…

After the second chorus, you will want to give the hand raisers and ribbon dancers a brief respite before the home stretch.  A “bridge” is a popular way to do this without letting their heart rates or endorphins return to normal levels.  The bridge is an important interlude, often accompanied by a key change, which serves to connect the second chorus to the third without subjecting the performer to the artistic degradation of a third verse.

Again, feel free to borrow lyrics from chick flicks, romance novels, or Seventeen Magazine.

You are the one, the only one for me. / Together forever, with you I’m free. / Nobody else makes me feel like you do. / Together forever, too good to be true.

You have to go read the whole thing for yourself.

Transposr.com

RSSers – you may need to hit the blog to check out the video and before/after mp3′s!

Check it out for yourself at www.transposr.com. Sorry for the audio – my mic is crapping out on me and I really should get a new one.

As promised, the before and after versions of this mp3 file -

Before: “How Awesome Is Our God” in D -

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

After: “How Awesome Is Our God” in E -

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As you can hear, it’s not exactly a picture perfect recreation of the song in the new key but if you are just looknig for a way for your band to play along with a chart you’ve given them that’s in a different key than the recording they’ve got then this is a really simple way to make that happen.

If you’d like to hear the whole song and download a chord chart, you can do that at this post here – http://www.chrisfromcanada.com/?p=734

Paul Baloche – A Greater Song

I’m planning on introducing What Can I Say from Paul Baloche’s CD “A Greater Song” later this summer and once we do that we’ll be using four songs (Hosanna, Because Of Your Love and Your Name are the others) from the album at our church. I can’t think of any other CD that has that many songs in our rotation. Paul is a brilliant songwriter, a great worship leader and it is clear that he is immersed in the life of a local worship pastor. The combination of those things means that he has put together some incredible songs that are helping the church grow in their worship of God.

Seriously – can you name another CD (not compilation or “best of” CD’s) from a single artist that has FOUR SONGS that you can use in regular rotation at your church?? I think right now we are living in an incredible time where there is an endless number of resources and songs available to us but let’s not overlook the BEST songs and resources that are sometimes right under our noses.

I’m pretty sure Paul Baloche doesn’t read my blog but, Paul, if you’re reading this – thanks, man. Thanks for serving God and giving your gifts and your talent to serve the church. You are a mentor and a role model to so many of us and I’m praying that there are many great songwriters who follow in your footsteps.

Give Paul some props.

Songwriters Forum – stage 2

Back in September we hosted our first Songwriters Forum and I wanted to give you an update on what’s happened since then.

To give you some context, we have talked alot recently about the idea of “local worship expression” – not only using songs and art from the historical and global church but also to be developing our own worship repertoire that would encourage and inspire worship from within our own congregation.

After meeting together back in September, we did a follow-up meeting in November and then got together again last week. Here’s a quick recap so far of what’s happened -

Stage 1 – Songwriters Forum
This was open to everyone from our church and was held on a Saturday morning. We talked about songwriting concepts specific to congregational worship – form, range, lyric, etc. We had about 20 people come to this – only 3 of whom were from our worship ministry.

Stage 2 – Songwriters Roundtable
This is the stage we’re in now and we’ve met together twice. At our first meeting we had 9 people and last week we had 10 or 11. At this meeting we started brainstorming ideas on themes for songs and at our second meeting we split in to two groups and actually began working on writing our first songs.

Stage 3 – Songwriter Groups
The next stage will be to break our writers in to smaller groups of 3 or 4. We’ll get together for our “roundtable” again in May and then each of the smaller groups will be expected to meet together once or twice before we get together again in the summer. The idea is that we will see these individual groups bring drafts of songs to our roundtable gatherings for the others groups to hear and give input.

So there you go. It’s been pretty awesome to see how this has gone so far and I’m excited to see where it will go next. At the end of our roundtable last week each of the two groups had a theme, lyric and melody idea which will hopefully be developed in to songs that we’ll be able to use with our congregation on Sunday morning. Obviously there will be lots of pruning – each of the songs that will come out of these writers will be subject to the same criteria as every other new song that’s available for me to choose from, but there is something really special about people from our own congregation writing songs specific to our experience.

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This is my Watercooler Wednesday post. Check out my other posts in this series –
If I Was Commissioner Of The NHL
Worship Leader Magazine Thoughts
Productivity Helper
Oscar Peterson & Count Basie
Fredo Viola – The Sad Song
Absolut Quartet

More thoughts on songwriting

I told you about a songwriters’ forum we hosted a couple weeks ago and how I thought it went really well. Out of that we decided to get together again so this week 7 of us spent a couple hours digging through this idea of what it means to write our own material for congregational worship. We talked about the importance of the lyric for “worship music” and where we can find inspiration.

After a couple of hours together we found that we had 3 potential song ideas to work with all based on the theme of grace. We’re taking those ideas home to work on and everyone will be sending me some song/lyric ideas next week. We’ll be getting together again before Christmas and hopefully we’ll keep on taking some next steps with this stuff!

If you’re interested, I’ve got a two-page outline with 14 inspirations for songwriting. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing it and I’ll pass it along. Here are some quick ideas:

• Google
  • Decide on a topic for a song, put that world in Google, hit search and see where things take you. If you use Firefox or the newest version of Internet Explorer, click the results with the middle button of your mouse and it will open the page in a new tab. You can open dozens of new pages this way while still staying on the Google results page.
• Read poetry
  • Great words will often inspire great words. If you don’t have a favourite poet, go to the library and get an anthology of poetry. Don’t feel like you have to write poetically but let the beauty of the language inspire and direct you.
• Write a song every day
  • I know people who do this because it really works for them and I also know people who do this simply for the discipline of doing it. Don’t worry about quality – one great idea may come from one hundred attempts but that will make all of those attempts worth it!
• Go for a walk
  • Be inspired by creation! I know it sounds silly but as you walk just start naming the things you see. “Oh, there’s a green leaf. It’s on a branch way up high on that big maple tree. Look at the squirrel making his nest with those sticks.” You might want to make sure that you’re by yourself when you’re doing this
• Keep a notebook
  • You never know when a great idea will strike! Have a notebook in your car, your purse, at your office, wherever and be disciplined about using it. It’s fine to have the notebook there but if you are always putting off the actual note-taking (“Oh that’s a good idea – I’ll have to remember to write that down later”) you will never actually see the benefits. Another option is to have a small audio recorder with you – lots of PDA’s have this now.

Have you got any good ideas?

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