Over the mountains and the sea
Your river flows with love for me.
I'm happy to be in the truth
And I will daily lift my hands
For I will always sing of
When your love came down.
I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.
The chief fault of the song is that it really does seem like you'll be singing of his love forever. The band usually played the chorus over and over again, and as you'll notice, there's not much variety to the lyric sheet at that point. Natasha decided at some point to spruce it up by singing, "But I can't sing this song forever."
Another of the popular songwriters whose work we sang in worship was Scott Underwood. Underwood seemed to have the notion that God was schizophrenic and would have an identity crisis if we didn't remind him who he was. Note the stunningly insightful chorus:
You are God of the heavens and God of the earth
You are God of our Saviour's virgin birth
You were God on the cross and God over hell
You were God before man and God when he fell
You
You are
You are God
You are God, God, God
You
You are
You are God
You are God, God, God
Underwood seems to love pointless repetition, as evidenced by this other gem we used to sing:
You are my shepherd, I have no needs
You lead me by peaceful streams
And you refresh my life
You hold my hand and You guide my steps
I could walk through the valley of death
And I won't be afraid
Because you are in control
You are in control
You are in control
You are in control
It's good to acknowledge that God is in control of the situation, but why do we have to repeat it four times in a chorus that is going to be repeated at least four times itself before the worship leader realizes that we're starting to depict God as a control freak with his booted foot pressing down on our heads?
Still, the all-time most meaningless praise-and-worship song I've ever encountered is this one:
Every move I make, I make in you
You make me move, Jesus
Every breath I take, I breathe in you
Every step I take, I take in you
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take, I breathe in you.
Waves of mercy, waves of grace
Everywhere I look, I see your face
Your love has captured me
Oh my God this love
How can it be?
It has a great, catchy melody, but I've never yet found a single person who can tell me what the song means. I like a good mix. The music has to be nice, but I want to be able to worship God with my mind as well. I have a hard time doing that with a lot of the praise choruses in circulation at the moment.
Okay. I feel better now.
Praise choruses are a reaction to the reliance our parents' generation had on the hymns to the exclusion of much else. Played on an organ as though they were a dirge, hymns exercise the mind but not the body. Praise music, with its much catchier tempos and updated instrumentation, allows us to worship with our bodies, but not as often our minds.
When I first became a Christian almost 17 years ago -- it'll be 17 sometime this July -- I took to praise music and CCM like a duck to water. It was alive, vibrant and everything the music at my parents' church wasn't.
I'm a little older now, and I want more balance. I still get bored to tears by the music at church when I attend with my parents, or when I attend with my grandmother-in-law, because it's so lifeless. And when it's just a catchy melody mixed with empty words, I can still only get halfway into it. Both my body and my spirit long for perfect worship and unity with God, so I long for even an imperfect fusion of the approaches to worship.
Give it 20 or 30 years, and I figure the bulk of the junk we sing today will have filtered out by then. Of course, we'll have new junk to contend with, but that's how it usually works.
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