“Not all our hymn texts will be, or even should be Rolls Royces; but they should all be decently roadworthy, and as true to Scripture, as free from blemish, as carefully constructed, as appealing to imagination, heart and will, and as user-friendly as we can make them. The fact that God deigns to accept our human efforts, and to bring good even out of their deficiencies, is no mandate for a casual approach to our work.” — Hymnodist Timothy Dudley-Smith
- True to Scripture
- Carefully constructed
- Appealing to imagination, heart and will
- User friendly
This is an excellent checklist for worship songwriting. Of course the most important part is to be true to Scripture and, next, to be carefully constructed. But this list points out a dual challenge we have when writing music for the church: our songs must be “appealing to imagination, heart and will” on one hand but “user friendly” on the other. An adventurous Radiohead song appeals to the imagination but even if it were written for Christian worship it would not be very user friendly to the average congregation. But a set list full of tunes like the Happy Birthday song won’t appeal to many imaginations.
There is no magic formula that will tell you how imaginative is imaginative enough, or how user friendly is user friendly enough. This is the risk that worship songwriters take. We can lessen that risk by trial and error, by critique groups, workshops and the feedback of trusted friends, by trying out songs on small groups and congregations. In the end, there is no getting around the fact that writing music for the Church is difficult, and that many of our efforts will be dashed on the rocks. Prepare your heart for this.
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Bobby, I love this idea of “imaginative” songwriting. As I read your post, I noticed is probably the area I struggle with the most. Theological accuracy doesn’t automatically make a great song. The song needs to reflect the adventure and mystery of the Gospel. Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome! It’s a struggle for me too. It’s such a unique problem to have — how to reflect adventure and mystery while, at the same time, being singable and memorable enough for large crowds of people.
We definitely need ‘verbal imaginativeness’. But this can be done in a stately, reverent manner, or it can be done in a much more ‘on the edge’ manner. I’m thinking of the difference between two very successful songs: ‘In Christ Alone’ and ‘How He Loves’. Both are actually highly imaginative in their imagery, but give two very different vibes to the listener. One imagines more from a scriptural basis, and the other from more vivid imagery to point us to the nature of God.
I suppose there is plenty of room for creative expression in both directions, though I think we sometimes conclude that new, modern, stately hymn texts are too hard, so we expend more effort on older texts or on newer ‘fresh’ expression. For me, I say – lets have more of all of it!