Expand Your Worship Song Themes With This Easy, Gospel-Centered System

Any worship pastor who has been crafting worship service liturgies for awhile knows the dilemma. So does any worship songwriter: How do I present new songs to the church that don’t just say the same thing? How do I make sure I’m providing a full gospel diet for worshipers?

I’ve reminded you of themes before, in articles such as 9 Proven (But Largely Forgotten) Themes For Worship Songs and Two Models of Prayer to Improve Your Worship Songwriting & Selection. But did you know our ancient church forebears also provided a powerful tool for ordering the very days of our lives after gospel rhythms, year after year? From the first day of Advent to Christ The King Sunday one year later, each season of the Christian Year focuses on a different part and aspect of Christ’s life and mission.

Whether your church follows the Christian liturgical year calendar or not, a brief overview of these seasons and feast days will help you write and select songs for worship that teach and exult in every movement of the gospel. And once you know this framework, you can mix and match songs from each period as needed for your individual context. For instance there is no reason Christians can’t sing “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” year round, or “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today” on any given Sunday.

Let’s walk through each cycle of the Christian Calendar, looking for inspiration and ideas for songwriting and worship service planning. As you read about each season and study songs that fit each season, let your own creative juices flow:

Advent — As Kristen wrote in her article What Is Advent? Why & How Should You Observe It, “This season of Advent is a re-enactment of Israel’s wait for the birth of their Messiah, and a symbol of our longing for Christ’s return.” Advent is loaded with eschatological meaning. This is a chance to explore themes of the Second Coming and “Your Kingdom come.”

Charles Wesley’s hymn “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” is a classic example. You can read my full analysis of “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” and hear Bill Mallonee’s version of it here. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is another solid Advent hymn. And here is a contemporary one, written by our worship pastor Mike Cosper. His “Glory Be” paints a picture of a world “waiting for the light” prior to Christ’s first Advent, then compares it to our own longing for a savior prior to our conversion, and our waiting for Christ to return to earth:

Christmas — We all know many popular Christmas hymns and carols. You can read my analysis of “Go, Tell It On The Mountain” and hear Sojourn’s version of that Christmas spiritual here. And you can hear many songs for Christmas and Advent on our Advent-Christmas worship songs playlist on Spotify. One of our favorite modern examples

Who Is The Main Character In Your Story?

Whenever you tell your story, whether in a conversation, a song, written testimony, a speech or sermon, remember this:

“When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” — Eugene Peterson

• Do you see your story in the larger context and plot of the whole, big story of God?
• How can our songs, church communication and liturgical art communicate that God is the main character in life’s grand story?

“Good News Cross” image by Sojourn visual artist Brittany Colyer, woven from newspapers and placed over a colorful floral background.

In 4 Sentences, John Wesley Teaches You How To Sing In Church

John Wesley

“Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he comes in the clouds of heaven.”

• Quote from Select hymns with Tunes Annext: Designed chiefly for the Use of the People Called Methodists

This exhortation is fitting for all of us who aim to worship God as we sing, whether we are writing or leading the songs being sung, or if we’re in the gathered worshiping congregation, or in our cars, or even exercising while listening to worship songs.

Wherever we are, in whatever we’re doing while listening to and/or singing songs of worship, we should have our hearts fixed upon our Savior, tuned to sing HIS praise. It’s too easy for us to miss the meaning of the words we’re singing, to be caught up in the swelling dramatic sounds accompanying the lyrics.

Keeping my focus on the Lord in every word and lyric sung is a difficult challenge for me, and I’m sure for every worshiper. However, with the help of God’s Spirit we are able to sing with the eyes of our hearts opened to see the Risen Christ, to ponder the depths of His love and the meaning of His sacrifice for us. Praise God that His Holy Spirit enables us to sing spiritually.

Time For Dangerous Music: My John Mark McMillan Interview

John Mark McMillan performing live at our church Sojourn's music venue, The 930 Listening Room

I first heard of John Mark McMillan a few years ago, shortly before we began singing his “Death In His Grave” and “How He Loves” in worship services at Sojourn. Since then, he’s become one of my favorite singer-songwriters. Songs like those mentioned above, and “Sheet of Night,” “Murdered Son,” “Seen A Darkness,” “Carolina Tide” and many more paint vivid pictures and tell gripping stories of love, murder, redemption, sacrifice and resurrection — just as the best folk music and hymnody have always done.

Songwriters, worship leaders, musicians and people of all stripes can learn much from John Mark McMillan. I’m thrilled to bring you this conversation we shared, as part of the My Song In The Night interview series.

Bobby Gilles: In the biopic No Direction Home, Bob Dylan calls himself a “musical expeditionary.” Even though he’s a highly original writer, he borrows from traditional folk ballads, the Bible, classic poems, blues standards and other material. You strike me, similarly, as being a “musical expeditionary,” eager to work with what’s come before. Is that a fair assessment?

John Mark McMillan: Yes, that sounds like something you could say about me.

Bobby Gilles: You’ve written before that the line “Death In His Grave” was inspired by the line from the folk song “Jesse James.”

John Mark McMillan: Yes.

Bobby Gilles: And knowing you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, when I hear “Daylight” from your new record Economy, where you sing:

“We live on the edge of a darkness”

I think of Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge of Town.

John Mark McMillan: Yes. Here’s how that happened: lots of times when you’re writing songs and you get stuck on a word or phrase, what you need to do is just put in whatever words occur to you, then finish the first draft of the song, rather than just stopping because you’re hung up on that one lyric.  It’s like if you were building something, At first you want the “1000 foot view” of something and then you go back to the details later.

So very often I’ll have lyrics that I’ll plan to rewrite later. “Daylight” was like that. I thought, “It feels like I’m ripping off Springsteen,” because I’m very familiar with that album and song. But I got to the end of it and thought, “No, I really like this, even with the obvious Springsteen influence.”

Bobby Gilles: When I hear “The Living Ain’t Easy” from “Sheet of Night,” I think Gershwin:

“Summertime, and the living is easy …”

John Mark McMillan: I love doing that. I think language builds on itself so it’s fun to take language you’ve heard and use it in a new context.

Bobby Gilles: Let’s talk more about “Death In His Grave” because it’s such a huge song for us here at Sojourn, and so well written. This song – and all your writing – is brimming with rich poetic devices. Here, you’ve got “personification,” where the earth, sun and moon do things like “cry out for blood” or “turn their heads.” Then you’ve got lots of alliteration of that “D” sound: disfigured, disdained, daughters, dues, debt, day, and of course death.

Do you have formal poetry training, or a love for it? Does all this come from listening to great songs, or from your natural instincts?

John Mark McMillan: It is just from listening to great songs. I would definitely benefit from studying poetry and literature. I’d like to go back and do that someday but most of my poetic instincts now are just from listening to great songwriters.

Bobby Gilles: My favorite line might be “On Friday a thief,” because it’s so much more powerful than “On Friday hung between thieves.” Did you catch any flack for that, from literalists saying, “Our Lord wasn’t a thief”?

John Mark McMillan: I’ve caught a little bit of flack, nothing major. Some people will pick apart anything, and find something they don’t like. It’s just a colloquial way of speaking, though. People like you to be super literal but the Bible itself uses all kinds of literary devices and colloquial language. Jesus did that all the time. And “Death In His Grave” is full of it.

Some people try to defend the line by saying “Well, he took all sin on himself so he was a thief as he hung on the cross.” If you have to do that to feel right about singing the song, that’s fine, but for me it’s just a way of expressing a truth – he was treated like a thief one day, and like a risen king the next day. The picture – the story I’m trying to tell – is in the contrast.

If you want to get literal he’s not really a king like some guy sitting on a throne in London – he’s much greater than that. We use the word “king” because we have a basic understanding of what that means, but his authority is far beyond that of any earthly king. It’s just a word we use to get close to the reality.

Bobby Gilles: Speaking of catching flack, you once wrote: “It’s time to write dangerous music. It’s time to take risks.” In your wildest dreams would you have ever thought that what many pastors or the Christian marketplace would consider dangerous or controversial would be:

 “Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss”?

Get Our FREE New Worship EP Right Here!

Today’s the day. Get our new EP The Whole Big Story for free, in the player to your right (or Noisetrade.com/kristengilles). The automated prompt will ask you if you want to “leave a tip.” Feel free to ignore it — we’re glad for you to have these modern hymns free of charge. For anyone who does feel led to leave a tip, know that we will funnel that money into our recording budget, to bring you more worship songs in the future.

We would love for those of you on Facebook or Twitter to help spread the word about The Whole Big Story though. We want as many people as possible to meditate on the scriptural truths in these songs, bask in the glory of God and sing these words as an offering of praise to Him.

Taken together, these songs tell God’s story from creation to the Second Coming and Christ’s reign in the New Earth. We believe these hymns cover themes and Bible stories that aren’t conveyed in many songs for the Church (read the scriptures that inspired each of these songs here).

• These songs teach that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t simply akin to throwing himself in front of a bullet for us (as brave and noble as that would be), but rather that He is the Lord of all Creation who willingly died on His own tree, having known and determined to do so before creation’s dawn.

• These songs teach a crucial, blessed difference between Old Testament worship and our reality — that we don’t have to wait once a year for an appointed priest to pray and offer sacrifice for our sins, but that we can boldly go before God’s throne all the time. Christ’s sacrifice has “torn the veil.”

• These songs teach that we have nothing to fear because God has adopted us as sons and daughters through the cross, and made us joint-heirs with Jesus.

• These songs show that Jesus cast Satan from the sky, tied him up and crushed his head. The Holy Spirit is sweeping through the earth, and Christ is adding to His Church as the demons helplessly roar, knowing how this story will end. Christ will come again, bringing His people back to set up a kingdom wherein “love will cover all the earth, in the kingdom without end.”

We strove to make the melodies memorable and compelling, yet easy to sing. All of them stay well within the range of the average person (1.5 octaves).

We hope you enjoy The Whole Big Story. Your free download includes chord sheets. You can also get the chord sheets anytime by choosing the appropriate song under our Gilles Music tab on this website. There, you’ll also find instructional videos for how to play the songs on The Whole Big Story.

If you wish to download this EP in a larger music file than mp3, you can do so for only $2 through kristengilles.Bandcamp.com:

Write Songs Like David: 5 Ways To Compose Like The Psalmist

1. Pour Your Heart And Guts Out

David’s song lyrics in the Book of Psalms display the full range of human emotion: lament and sorrow, triumph and joy and everything in between. David cried out to God “My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” in songs like Psalm 4. He also offered heartbreaking confessions of sin to God, like Psalm 51, and he displayed his vulnerability in songs like Psalm 69:

You know my folly, O God;
my guilt is not hidden from you.

May those who hope in you
not be disgraced because of me,
O Lord, the LORD Almighty; (Psalm 69:5-6, ESV)

Yet we hardly ever do this is in modern worship songs. Many contemporary western churches rely exclusively on happy, upbeat music and lyrics. David knew all about that and wrote many psalms of victory and praise, yet when he had sinned or when God seemed distant, he didn’t put on a happy-faced mask. The psalms are honest with God, and honest with us.

2. Develop Your Songwriting Technique

As we teach in our How To Write A Personal Psalm page, Hebrew poetry didn’t rhyme or constrict itself to the meters we find in English hymnody, but it included poetic and rhetorical techniques such as those that scholars have labeled synonymous (Psalm 3), antithetical (Psalm 17) and synthetic poetry (Psalm 139). David knew his stuff. He was a gifted writer who skillfully applied the literary and poetic devices of his day. After all, here was a man with such command of metaphor that he could come up with:

“Their throat is an open grave …” (Psalm 5)

“He who is pregnant with evil
and conceives trouble gives birth to
disillusionment” (Psalm 7)

• Get our free Songwriter’s Glossary Of Poetic And Rhetorical Devices Here.
• Get our free Glossary of Hymn Meter & Form terms Here.

3. Write Songs Distinctively, Uncompromisingly To The One True God

We Have New Sovereign Grace Neighbors – Who Else Wants To Join Us?

Kristen and I learn and enjoy from Sovereign Grace Music, and have mentioned them from time to time here at My Song In The Night (most notably my interview with Devon Kauflin, songwriting analysis of “All I Have Is Christ”, and listing Bob Kauflin’s Worship Matters as one of our ten favorite books for worship leaders).

We’ve also benefitted from the teaching of C.J. Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace pastors. So we’re excited that they’ve announced that Sovereign Grace is moving their base of operations to Louisville and planting a church here. As natives in the Louisville metropolitan community, we can attest that the official reasons Sovereign Grace gave for moving to Louisville are all true:

“Here are the main factors that led us, after much discussion, to approve this relocation generally, and to choose Louisville in particular:

• The cost of living index is much lower there, such that we anticipate up to 40% reduction in the cost for a student to attend the Pastors College
• The proximity to Southern Seminary allows us to upgrade our academic offerings, including opportunities for collaboration and potential transfer credit toward a Masters degree
• The lower cost of living also allows us to further reduce administrative overhead (although ours is already lower than the standard for non-profits), especially in the areas of office space (including the Pastors College) and staff compensation
• The more central location will make it easier for pastors to audit classes or attend preaching practica (Louisville is within a day’s drive for two-thirds of the U.S. population)
• Basing Sovereign Grace Music out of Louisville places Bob Kauflin’s team much closer to Nashville, where they can both learn from and help influence other spheres of Christian music development.”

Not to mention, many Sovereign Grace leaders have frequented Louisville for various conferences, workshops and meetings so they know about the great local businesses. Now they can have Quills Coffee everyday, and eat at La Rosita’s. Just last week Kristen and I enjoyed the great home for Southern cuisine Doc Crow’s in the company of Bob, Devon and Jordan Kauflin, with other worship ministry leaders. They like it here, and you would too.

So … which other ministries, record companies, publishing houses, artists, potential college & seminary students and others want to move to Louisville? We love other cities (including New York and Dallas, where Kristen has lived), but for many reasons, Louisville is a happening place. Think about it.

Louisville skyline photo by Chuck Heeke

5 Things to Pray for Your Congregation As You Prepare to Lead Worship

Part of prayerfully preparing to lead music at your church gatherings each week includes praying for everyone who will gather.  This will help and encourage you and others in your congregation to keep your focus on the Savior King who alone has the power to save, heal and deliver all who call upon His name.

Here are five prayer points to help you pray for your congregation as you prepare to lead worship each week. These are not at all exhaustive, nor do they need to be prayed verbatim. Think of these simply as starters to help you and your worship team pray:

why you need Rising Tide, a song that covers the cross to the second coming

Few contemporary praise & worship songs deal with the Last Days, and even fewer tell the epic story of Christ and His Church, from First Advent to Second. Yet it’s important for us to remember our place in this grand story. We also must continuously remind ourselves of the preeminent place of the Cross in that story. No matter how Satan rages, no matter how this world groans under the weight of sin, Jesus Christ has assured our victory and has promised to return.

For this reason Kristen and I wrote the modern hymn Rising Tide. You and your church will have fun singing this one. Like an old folk ballad, “Rising Tide” tells a linear story that, in effect, unites the singers in their shared experience.

In our first verse “God entered time/came as a babe.” Then we sing about Jesus growing up and casting Satan down “like lightning” (Luke 10:18). We explore the irony that the means of Satan’s defeat was the very thing that he thought was victory — the cross, in which Jesus crushed Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15) and canceled our sin debt (Colossians 2:13-15).

Then we sing of his resurrection, in which he took the sting out of death (1 Corinthians 15:44), then His ascension (Acts 1:6-10), followed by:

“Then sent His Spirit, like the wind,
To draw us in, to lead us home”
— Acts 2, day of Pentecost

But as we know, the story doesn’t end there. We have our own part in it, as has every Christian who has ever lived. Christ is plundering Satan’s stronghold, saving lives and transforming hearts today (Luke 11:20-22, Mark 4:30-34). The body of Christ grows ever larger because we have the gift of eternal life. Christians die, then go to heaven to await our return with him, while new souls are continuously added here on earth (Hebrews 12:18-24, 1 Thessalonians 4:14-16).

“No force can stop the spreading Church,
No foe can stem the rising tide
Of those alive in Second Birth
Through Him who lives, though crucified”

In the final verse, we sing of the culmination — the inevitable end of the forces of darkness, the triumph of the saints, and the invincible might of Christ. From the middle of this verse:

“When trumpet sounds, He’ll bring His Church,
Stamp out each desperate trace of sin,”
— Matthew 24:30-31, Zechariah 14:4, Revelation 19:11-21

And we end with a picture of the new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21-22), the final, lasting proof that Jesus has delivered us from darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom (Colossians 1:13).

Kristen and I wrote the “Rising Tide” verses in “Long Meter,” (lines of 8 syllables each), one of the three most common meters, and one particularly suited to epic storytelling and grand themes. (for you “metric nerds” like me, I will say that I chopped a syllable off of each verse’s final line — it creates a sharpened, dramatic effect that builds well toward the chorus). Then we gave it a melody that is memorable and easy to sing.

The verses give way to a simple refrain, which we repeat twice:

Oh rising tide of righteousness —
The Kingdom is at hand!

And for you friends of our church’s worship ministry Sojourn Music, we were honored to have Brooks Ritter join Kristen on vocals. We’re excited to share this worship song with you next week, when we’ll release it for free as part of the new Kristen Gilles EP The Whole Big Story. You’ll be able to download it for free right here on My Song In The Night or Noisetrade.com/kristengilles.

Get the chord sheet and watch Kristen demonstrate how to play Rising Tide on guitar, here.

why you need to sing about the torn veil in Bold Before God’s Throne

Few hymns and praise songs describe the rending of the veil to the Holy of Holies in the temple, which occurred as Jesus died. But it’s important to teach yourself and the worshipers in your church about this event, because it portrays our new standing before God — one in which we can go boldly before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14-16). As Kristen sings it in our new song Bold Before God’s Throne:

No longer would we need a priest to pray for all our sin;
No veil can separate us now, so boldly we go in …

In Exodus 25:31-35: God laid the blueprint for a massive, ornate veil to separate the Most Holy Place (or “Holy of Holies”) from the Holy Place, inside the tabernacle. Then in Leviticus 16 he gave the Israelite priesthood instructions for the once-a-year Day of Atonement. On this annual event, one man in all of Israel (the High Priest) entered behind the veil and made sacrifice for the sins of the people. No one else — including great heroes of the faith we read about in the Old Testament — could enter into God’s throne room.

And of course the animal sacrifice couldn’t atone for our sins once-for-all; it only moved the sin debt forward to next year’s Day of Atonement.

Yet when Christ gave his life for us, an earthquake rocked Jerusalem and the veil inside the temple was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:50-51). Jesus’ victory over Satan and sin on the cross gained our entrance into the Holy of Holies, God’s throne room (Hebrews 9:7-10:10) and made us into a kingdom of priests (Revelation 1:5-6). Resting on Christ’s sacrifice, our “only prayer,” we are now a holy priesthood, able to offer acceptable worship to God (1 Peter 2:7).

This is an important aspect of the gospel for you to remember, and to “teach and admonish one another, in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). Our new Bold Before God’s Throne will help you do that. The melody is simple. We think it’s catchy and interesting, yet easy to sing. The chorus soars, yet doesn’t require a big vocal leap.

We wrote the verses in Common Meter. As the name implies, this is the most popular hymn meter, which provides the structure for thousands of hymns like “Amazing Grace,” patriotic songs like “America The Beautiful,” folk ballads like “House of the Rising Sun” and jingles like the Gilligan’s Island theme song. In other words, your people will easily pick this song up (more on hymn meter here and a glossary of hymn meter terms here).

The verses not only tell the story of the Holy of Holies and the torn veil, but of our response, and the paradox that we can approach God boldy while at the same time being more aware of our own sin and insufficieny:

Confident before the throne / though humbled all the more
Because the sacrifice of Christ / became our open door

And the verses remind us that, although our hearts condemn us because we realize how often we sin, God is “greater than our hearts” (1 John 3:20).

Kristen and I thank God that more and more worship songwriters are writing songs about the cross, and bringing back old hymns about the cross. Christ’s crucifixion in our place is central to the gospel.We want to continue writing songs that tell this old, old story in fresh ways. More importantly, we want to be true to every facet of scripture. We hope you’ll think the modern hymn Bold Before God’s Throne meets that criteria.

We can’t wait to share this worship song with you next week, when we’ll release it for free as part of the new Kristen Gilles EP The Whole Big Story. You’ll be able to download it for free right here on My Song In The Night or Noisetrade.com/kristengilles.

Get the chord sheet and watch Kristen demonstrate how to play Bold Before God’s Throne on piano, here.

• “Crucifixion” charcoal art, above, by Brittany Jennings of Sojourn Visual Arts ministry