Since I’m a worship pastor, you would think that I would make a post on worship stuff once in a while. Well, If you’ve been thinking that, then today is your lucky day! But not so lucky, because I’m just going to cut and paste a portion of Ross King’s journal for you to read instead of offering any original insight. Now, for those of you who don’t know Ross King, he’s a pretty popular worship leader around Texas, but is mainly based in College Station, doing Breakaway, pastoring a church, and aministrating a studio. Now, Ross is probably not on my short list of favorite worship leaders, but he certainly should be because he probably knows more about worship, theology, and faith than all the other worship guys out there combined. He’s just extremely insightful, mature, and wise, so for that he deserves some big props. I ran across an old journal post from his website this morning and thought he had some funny, but very true thoughts about over-used words and phrases in today’s worship songs.

WORDS AND PHRASES THAT PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE INCLUDED IN ANY NEW SONGS, AT LEAST FOR AWHILE:

“Seek Your face” – we’ve ridden this pony to death. It’s quite an abstract idea, really, and given that this phrase may have some implications that are rather disturbing (see Exodus 32-34), it’s time to hang it up anyway. Let’s try something like, “find out who You really are” or “discover Your true identity” or “know You as You desire to be known” or “see You as You are.” While we’re at it, we can stop rhyming “face” with “grace.” It’s been done. Plenty.

“Bow down” – this is a great thing to actually do, but most of the time we’re playing guitar when we say it, so it’s extremely difficult to model it. Let’s try something like, “give You my body” or “make myself low” or “lower myself for You.” Let’s try finding a biblical way to explore the necessity of shame (as an emotion, not as state of being) and lowliness and grief in the life of the disciple. That’s the point of “bow down.” We’ve just forgotten that, I think.

“Worship” and/or “praise” – in a few years, these words will once again mean what they are supposed to mean. Until then, people will quite often think that they refer to the specific, immediate, musical thing that happens when cool guys with goatees sing songs. Let’s try words like “applaud,” “discover,” “value,” “enjoy,” “appreciate,” “relish,” “bask,” etc.

“You are good” and/or “I stand in awe” – these are good phrases, and they’re certainly true, but let’s kick it up a notch. Lots of stuff is “good,” and “awe” just gets lost in the tragic flood of “awesome” over-usage. Let’s use words like “unbeatable,” “immeasurable,” “pleasure,” “delightful,” “fabulous,” “tremendous,” and “delicious.” Let’s say phrases like, “You always win” and “I’m ruined by Your greatness.”

“Reign” – as long as we live in a democracy (in this country and in most of our churches), we will have an exceptionally hard time connecting with this phrase. Let’s say what we really mean. How about “in charge,” “master,” or even “boss,”? Let’s try “You will not be shaken” or “You cannot be stopped” or “no one can push You around.” Does anyone have the guts to say something like, “You cause me to…”?

“Rain” – this analogy has been beaten to a bloody pulp. As a matter of fact, it would probably be ok for us to leave out the idea of anything “falling on us” for a couple of years at least.

Instead of saying “fill me,” let’s try something like “thank You for filling me.”

“Holy” – of course it’s a very biblical phrase, but I think we forgot it’s implication a long time ago. How about “completely unique,” “matchless,” “without peer,” “unlike anything else,” or “incomparable”? That’s really what it means, so let’s just say it, and leave no room for the de-sensitized Christian brain to miss it.

“Worthy” – again, it’s biblical, but let’s give this idea some meaning. Somebody write a song with words like “valuable,” or “noble” or “priceless.”

“Resound” – huh? This word is completely useless in any communicational context except for church. We like it because it rhymes with “bow down” and “renown” and “all around.”

“Dance” – I’m not against dancing, but this one just seems like the “poor man’s easy route to false excitement.” If we talk enough about dancing, maybe people will actually dance. Then we’ll be that band that was “so good, they had my kids dancing!” If we’re really interested in seeing congregations get excited, let’s sing songs about Him coming again. If this doesn’t make them dance, I’m pretty sure dancing isn’t what we want.

“Exalt” – what does this word mean, exactly? This is the first word/phrase in a sub-category that I don’t really have time to get into. That category might be called “things we never say unless we’re talking in church” (like ‘resound’). Maybe we should think about trying something like “make much of” or “admire” or “highly esteem.”

“Renown” – this is really an excellent word, and I applaud the Passion/OneDay machine for re-introducing us to it, but like we always do when something is cool, we may have already sucked the life out of it. I like “fame” and “famous” and it’s getting used a lot, which is good, I think. How about phrases like “very important “or “reputation” or “reputed” or “everyone knows about You”? When’s the last time we used the word “renown” outside of a church gathering?

“In one accord” – what does this even mean, exactly? Again, we’d never say this in a conversation, so I have a hard time believing that it represents something genuine and heartflet when we say it in a statement to the Lord. It just sounds silly and contrived and convenient, if you ask me. How about “all of us agree” or “we are unified”?

”I cry” or “we cry” – why do we feel a need to always describe our communication with God as “crying?” Any other time that we say “cry” we mean “shed tears.” I suspect that this is just another one of our attempts to insert drama into the all-too-boring Christianity that most of us exist in.

I just thought this really rings true these days. I get so fed up sometimes because I can’t find any original, solid worship songs out there. Maybe I should try writing more. Anyways, I gotta go. Have a great day!