Having been involved in a variety of different church worship teams, doing both leading to backing up its been interesting to see how each church approaches the process of selecting songs, critiquing songs, introducing new songs and writing songs.

Certainly the churches that are heard about around the world tend to be those who strongly lean towards writing and playing their own songs vs just playing other peoples songs all the time. Of course the purpose of writing songs is not so that your church can become a focal point but it should be to resource the church today among other things.

Song writing is an interesting process and yet it kind of puts you out there ready for people to tear the songs you have written apart. I have heard some people say about lead worshipers like Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall and others that certain songs that have been written are not full of enough scripture, some have said they dont mention Jesus enough to… these cant be songs for God it sounds more like a song for a wife or a girlfriend.

If guys and gals who are currently resourcing the church today with countless songs get comments like that, how much more will the average Joe Blogs in a local church get critiqued?

Should this sway you from introducing a new song you have written to your team? should this sway you from writing at all? No… there will always be some people who dont like the songs you have written and that might be just because they dont like the style, it might be because they have a " who do you think you are " mindset…. Heck even Jesus in his own town was given flack for things he said and did… they said " isn’t this the carpenters son?" sometimes it just takes time for people to get on board with the whole idea that they might have song writers in their congregation.

Now saying that.. there very well may be others who find the songs you have written " Life " they may find the songs you have written have drawn them into the presence of God or even help them learn something new about Him and his relationship with us

Either way, its vital that song writing is encouraged, its vital that their is people who budding song writers can go to who can offer direction and at times some hard truth.. as there will be times, songs wont be congregational, songs will need tweaking before they are played, and sometimes they might even need throwing out.

Also those who critique need to also be aware at times they might be wrong, for example Matt Redman for a long time used to go to his pastor Mike Pivalachi and ask for his input.. Mike once said that Matt redmans song " Heart of Worship " was not congregational but something probably just personal.. he later ate his words as that song is now played all over the world.

So Keep Writing, Find those who you can trust to give you direction
Keep Encouraging Writing as while there will always been numerous songs to use, there certainly is a wonderful element that comes into play when people within their own church write songs
Keep taking risks in your song writing.

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