Writing Lyrics: The Balance Between Poetry & Clarity | Co-Lab | Worship & Creative Conference 2019

well thank you so much for being here we're going to have a lot of fun in this session just to get a gauge on the room before we start who here would consider themselves a songwriter amazing all right that's good uh who here would consider i would like to use that gifting or already is towards writing songs for the for the local church all right great how many people would they're they're passionate about writing songs that exist outside the church all right how many people put your hand up twice cool amazing all right well hopefully there will be kind of something for everyone here today but we're going to be focusing on the balance between poetry and clarity and i think we have quite an excellent panel for such a topic would you agree um and so over here on my far side we have both robert and amanda ferguson yup who uh are a much loved couple to us and within our church and there are teaching pastors and with that comes the responsibility or the um yeah there's let's say responsibility the joy the joy yeah i like i like to refer to them as the balance yeah between poetry and clarity right there and so these guys um very gracefully actually look through and uh approve i guess would be the appropriate word or work with us towards achieving songs that are of optimum theological truth to the best of our ability and um they did a wonderful job with it and they're very patient and gracious in the process aren't they they are um and amanda's going to be helping me host this today do you want to say anything amanda before we no yeah no it's great to be with you all we've been doing this checking of songs for over 15 years now yeah wow and um most of the time it's a really enjoyable experience because we i've got to be honest occasionally um but it's that that challenge of you know walking that fine balance between um that poetic voice and um sounding a clear sound you know that that people are going to understand and it's it's a great process i think what we do is fairly unusual isn't it it is it's very unusual i think we're better for it i think it's great and m we also have here joel houston and ruben morgan both uh what did i call yesterday rubes a decorated statesman in the songwriting field you love that don't you [Laughter] no but these guys are amazing they're great friends of mine and they're also um incredible songwriters and just people and uh they've written some some of my favorite songs and songs that are have greatly helped and impacted the church and are sung by a great many people on a weekly basis so thank you for being here here we are pleasure all right should we kick it off well let's do that and we'll give you guys some time to answer questions as well at some point we might even we might even if we have time uh bring bring pull a song up on the screen and go through the process of approving in front of you to kind of show you a little bit of what's that amazing we should read the email change that that's what we should do there's a book in them all right well this question i guess is for anyone we have this um ancient truth that we're trying to communicate how do you um do you guys have any thoughts on how we take this this truth that has existed for ever and communicate that in a way that is poetically relevant or even culturally relevant and how do we do that i should have started with an easier question well i'm going to talk about that because i love the idea of communicating truth um one of the one of the challenges that any communicator has talking about god and about heaven and about the kingdom of heaven is that it's almost impossible to talk about jesus who is the greatest communicator ever kept on saying the kingdom of god is like the kingdom of god is like the kingdom of god is like he never wants once defined the kingdom because it's impossible to define he just said the kingdom of god is like this and he you almost have to read all of his references to get an idea of a little idea of what the kingdom of god is like and he always used metaphors he always used images in fact matthew 13 says he never taught anything without telling a parable and the the really weird thing about parables is that he tells them for two reasons he tells them to reveal the truth and to conceal the truth so we've got an extraordinarily difficult job to do to take something that is indefinable and almost indescribable and communicate it in a way that both conceals the truth to people who really don't want to know and reveals the truth to people who do want to know that is the challenge we have it's a bit like wrapping christmas presents the real thing is inside but we wrap them on the outside and honestly what these guys do is remarkable because they're taking something that's indescribable and describing it that's really difficult to do we actually have we actually have a visual up here um they're using the image of a typewriter to describe writing limit lyrics but because it's been photographed it's all reversed and so we're using the image but we can't quite work out what it's saying so that's our challenge always and so um with so you talk there robert about the idea of using pictures or stories i guess as a way to communicating why do you think that is such a powerful tool within the within communication look i i've been saying this in a number of sessions i i feel a bit of a ring in here because i'm the only songwriter and the non-songwriter in the room i've just spoken to some creative directors and i'm not one of those either and i've just spoken to the visual artists and i'm not one of those either but um when god created the world he he reveals himself as two things he reveals himself as a creator he likes making things and a communicator and therefore he speaks things into being so creativity and communication go hand in hand if god himself communicated through image through visual images which he did which he did and his son who reveals god on earth did the same we need to do the same we need to communicate in images we need to communicate in metaphors but the challenge of our title is that sometimes those communications or those metaphors mean very little to other people for instance jesus is speaking to a an agricultural first century context in which talking about vines and sheep and festivals makes sense but they don't make sense to us so we've got to unpack them we've got to use contemporary images but we've also got to use we've got to use universal metaphors that communicate effectively to different people in different cultures at different times that is that is an immense challenge but that's that's the challenge we have that's awesome it's really good um i don't know talking about clarity uh what's the name of that artist that spoke yesterday alexander mckenzie yeah so i don't know if any of you can as songwriters can relate to what he was saying how like god sort of puts a picture at the back of his head and he's and everything he paints he works on is basically to get that out um and i'm sure as an artist he doesn't feel like he ever really perfects what he saw you know he never completely communicates it and i feel like that's a little bit like um as a songwriter you find yourself in a moment this is me anyway i find myself in a moment and experience and you you want to translate it you want to speak it and you know the great thing about this is we've also got melody which is a very important part but with lyric you want to somehow communicate it in a way that you um conveying the feeling the truth the um what god might be saying and the experience that's going on as well and we've got words to do that and sometimes i think being honest is probably the best way to do it because if you see clearly then you have a good chance at communicating clearly but if you don't then uh it feels like you're following your words in a way do you know what i mean and you you and and you're you're chasing after where the words might take you which they do that as well and um yeah so i think it's about being in the moment allowing god to speak to you being you know where if we're creating worship then it's actually being in worship and having that experience of worship and that experience of god and then just believing that he gives us the wisdom and the um the perseverance to communicate it well and honestly and with all the other things as well right which is a great challenge because the i think perseverance is an interesting experience yeah because it is it's a real it's a real sort of like long process in taking that initial concept i mean i wish my the lyrics dropped in the back of my head like alexander mckenzie but um but yeah to taking it from that initial conception point right through and getting it right i mean george you want to speak into that i feel like you're you're relentless and yeah i mean i i i definitely relate to the to the to that thing in the back of your head um and and it's never you know like for me um you know i call it a feeling but it's more just like a sense of that's the thing like it's the collision of all the parts that make up a song you know um and and those things somehow combining in a way and there's all you know people can wrap science around it as much as you like but you know at the end of the day it's breath it's mystery it's like it's something that connects with those deep parts and us that you know um those groanings too deep for words you know and and so the paradox and the the irony in it is uh you know you're trying to put words to some of those things um but that thing it's like it's like a driving force it's like a center of some sense of like trying to bring clarity on what you should say and what you shouldn't say and then you know in that process it's like it's a sifting process kind of like going through message titles until you find something and it's like you know the whole time i was talking i was and i was like oh this is how i write songs you know what i mean it's like it's good it's just not the thing you know and i think it's it's allowing the time and the process for that and understanding that it can be different every time and not not allowing yourself to kind of um become a slave to to maybe what works last time or certain constructs and ways of doing things i think one of the biggest challenges in is just because um such and such a song connected as it is it did doesn't mean some version of that is going to do the same thing again and and there's all these kind of human traps that we get we fall into where you miss that mystery bit and to me that's like the thing what i was just thinking about when you guys were talking and i guess this is probably the the um the core process for me and i hope this makes sense and if it doesn't someone else can bring clarity to it um but like that screen up there at the moment it's basically well there's a bit of color there but you know it's there's just three colors that have been revealed you know in light and there's just red blue and green and and yet the combination of those colors if you walked up and had a look at anyone it might look kind of blue or purple but if you get up there one of those lights is red and one of its screen and one of it's blue and that's what's creating the image you know and so if you imagine like a color spectrum i like to think about it like that so practically you've got lyric you've got melody and you've got this mysterious mysterious thing it could be music it could be harmony it could be tempo it could be beat could be all those things they're your three elements of a song and if you see a venn diagram like with the kind of trinity symbol in the middle there's that core thing in in the guts where all those three things combine but the combination of those three lights now they can be themes so that thing in the middle where those three things combined that's the one thing that this song wants to say and sometimes that's the last thing to reveal itself and so you start working on the red light what is this well i feel like this is a song it's about intimacy it's about love it's about passion something there so i'm going to write along there and but it's not about that it's about something more what's the green light it's about humanity it's about something that connects with growth flourishing is there something there's a process in this okay i'm going to write lyrics around that how's that going to fit and these things might become verse one verse two uh what's the blue light you know it's it's it's just the mystery of god and this like the beauty of of the search and the journey it's like chasing after this thing all right i'm gonna write lyrics around that and then somewhere in the middle sometimes it's like those three lights form to create a bigger image and you go that's the thing it's going to be and that can take forever or it can happen an instant but when you find what that thing is and it sits in the middle which is often your chorus or it's you like i like to call it like like your armature the bones the central thing that's not on main street but it's the thing that people connect with the rest of the process then is peeling through all those lyrics and framing them in a way that help to create that picture that's kind of at the core of my process um and i think sometimes then like clarity like it so clarity for me is it's hard to put it into a specific word but it's that that that thing that kind of is revealed when you put all the elements that you've got in play together and um it's a trinitarian approach to songwriting it's a really interesting thing because uh i've never heard joel talk about the venn diagram of the three primary colors but actually that's exactly how i describe how to decide what to preach when i'm teaching on preaching i talk about you've got these three intersecting circles and one of them is what god wants another so that's the mystery side one of them is what the audience need that's the humanity side and the other is what i have and that comes from you know who i am as a person and what i can bring to the table and it's where those three things intersect that i choose a message would be exactly the same with the song what does god want what does the audience need what do i have if you can answer those three questions and i literally write questions to ask answer those questions what is god saying now what's he saying to us as a community what do i have what do i don't have what does the audience need what what what what season is the audience in that could actually be just a very simple way for you to work out what to speak on or what to write a song and joel do you sometimes find then that you've actually got more than one song in there and that it becomes maybe two or three songs or a bit of a song for later on yeah i mean like that's the that's the coolest thing is like i mean i'll go down a rabbit hole like quite literally um end up in wonderland and um and i'll you know it could seem completely wasted you know because you don't use any of it but like the number of times um i found myself say writing for a particular song and and the song becomes uh you know about um the woman who was caught in adultery for example you know like i'm trying to work that to a song and then you get to the end of it you go it's just not right like it's not connecting with that picture and you go hang on there's a whole song in that and we've done that multiple times like ben and i have been working on songs and we're going great there's just a whole song in that like um and i think that's that's kind of like it's kind of blessing for the labor in some respect it's like um so i'm that's why i have no problem in fact in over time like you know i'm happy to go through an entire process and for it to not be used like i remember um when i was younger you know like you work all night weeks or something and then no one no one it doesn't get used and and there's this like devastating feeling of like and i i've just learned in time like that's cool like that was there was process in that for me there was process in it for whatever the end result was i have to understand this was existed for a purpose it wasn't needed for that purpose it doesn't mean it's wasted and the number of times those songs have come back and i talked about last night and become a song in time at the right time in the right place in a different skin and it's perfect for them like you just got to trust god with that stuff um i'd love to hear your thoughts on this um ben hastings i mean so will i and many other great songs like you've got loads to say about lyric as well so yeah um anything specific or just lyric in general just miss larry all right answer your own question [Laughter] uh i don't know i'm caught off guard i wasn't expecting that um yeah i think oh i think a few things i the one of the things i was going to ask you guys i guess i was mulling over as well in my head is what makes like what makes a lyric compelling or what makes a lyric what makes you want to jump into and i'm not really sure i was kind of running through is it is it because you're answering a question or is it because you're asking a question or because it's asking a question of you and i think maybe um a great lyric is kind of doing all three at the same time it's kind of suggesting or leading you towards the truth while challenging what it is that you're contemplating about that that if that makes sense so it's a bit ethereal in concept but um but yeah like it it it grabs you and what so what i mean by it asks a question of you is you know you've got these lyrics every now and then and they just kind of hit you across the face and you're like oh right um it's like you know instantly the the answer of if it's asking a question you know the answer but it's because it it challenged you it asked a question of you that's i think for me that's what what moves me and when i'm when i'm kind of writing lyrics i definitely do um i resonate with what you were saying about the like finding the whatever's in the middle of those three colors finding the what is like the if you put a strip kind of like inception right if you were to strip the idea down to the simplest form like the spinny top thing like what what is that and is this song fully communicating what that spinny top actually is i watch this sorry i'm rambling now but i watched this interesting thing on em this might be controversial but a few years ago i watched this thing on was on donald trump while he was like running for presidency and regardless of what you think of donald trump one of there was this communications expert talking about how he was like why are people why is this resonating with people because what he's saying is so simple and the conclusion was it was because he'd done just that so he taken these grand ideas and where politicians would normally talk in ethereal language or quite articulate and he'd strip them down to these really simple thoughts and they just happen to be resonating does that make sense and i think that is that's what a great pop song does it just takes the easiest the simplest form of the theme and it em and it hammers you across the head with it until you get it i think that's such a key i remember there was a there was a song that didn't make it on the last young and free album and the reason it didn't was because the songwriters didn't really know what they were wanting to say so i would keep sending it back and saying is this what you're wanting to say and they'd go oh maybe it is and they'd rewrite it again and then in the end it be unless you've got that key thought it's a problem i've got a question for all of you because you know we've been talking a lot about images but poetry is more than that um some people think in images and ben and joel absolutely do but some people are really good with just literal but vivid language that communicates so i want a quick show of hands who who tends to think in images and metaphors when you're writing okay and who finds it difficult and tends to just write and who doesn't know who what they are okay that's the rest of you neither one is better than the other they're both valid and actually i think that um reuben is a master of using language succinctly and powerfully and i'm going to put you on the spot and ask you to tell me the first verse of see the light it should be simple for you yeah i think it's um arise my soul remember this um he took my sin and buried it no longer i okay really simple four short phrases and and we've heard the music lots of room to reflect right you know it's and and yet beautifully expressed in a way that communicates that's poetry as well and we must never forget that you know the power of well-chosen words somebody said that poetry is the best words in the best order i actually when i first heard that verse i thought that's exactly what poetry is like the whole song's wrapped up in 12 words or something you know like it's pretty amazing you know there's a there's a um yeah i talked about amateur before you know that now it's a fancy word of saying structure or the bones it's like the hidden thing that holds like our form together and it's it's a it's a key word when people especially like in script writing like movies for example so usually uh any script writer or filmmaker um they'll say what's this movie about um and they can answer it in one sentence you know and like an example is um uh the wizard of oz you know and so you say what's the wizard of oz about and people say oh it's about you know a girl who's on a journey to you know whatever it might be and um the armature and everybody would have known this in the process especially the writers the armature is very simple it's you already have what you need and so that's never it's never kind of said but it said if you watch that film it is said literally every single scene every single character every single moment every single metaphor is basically saying the same thing over and over and over and over again so for example you know help me out because like the scarecrow doesn't have a brain is that right yeah i think so um and the lion doesn't have courage and so each time when you meet the character so when the scarecrow's there um asks dorothy hey can you help me get off this i think he clearly's got a brain he's talking um can you help me get off this thing i can't get myself off because i you know i don't have a brain and then she's trying to help him and right away he's like look if you can just move this to there and move this to there i can get off you know and so he's using his brain and it's that the whole way through and it's the lion who ultimately uses his courage so it's written all the way through it and i found that inspiring it's true for every especially pixar films that are so good that are bringing one thing home all the characters everything is basically putting flesh on what that armature is so people can see the movie and they don't know why they connect with it the story can be ridiculous the story can be whatever but people walk away with this sense of of knowing what that was and usually it's something very clear that resonates with the human condition and that's helped me immensely when it comes to deciding what lyric and what not lyric why something's important why i'll go back and forth on something and and force me to find new ways of saying that thing it's almost just like here's here's your framework uh if it's a third arm it's just gonna confuse people you know like just it doesn't need that kind of deal so that's been really helpful i think you do that very well and whether you think about it or not it's just natural yeah and you do that beautifully with there's another in the fire you know you can see your personal journey but the the universal experience and then the the imagery of um you know the daniel story all brought in so powerfully but but i bet if i asked you to show me all the drafts and i know a fair for you because we put you through a fair for you um you know he would have he would have written i don't know how many versions of that or who did you write was it just chris davenport yeah well how many you know countless to get there we sometimes want the shortcut and there's no shortcuts there i think the i just want to pick up on so you know we're talking about the objective and the the three circles and talking about finding the one theme can i just encourage you that often takes the greatest effort right when i'm when i'm talking about communicators and this is not just about songwriting it's it's about communicating it's you must learn how to write an objective sentence a proposition and it's got to be clear and i've just been in a director's group and josh bonay our creative director says one of the things that i must have from robert when i'm working with him is what is the big idea in one sentence tell me what i'm trying to illustrate but you know preachers down the world of around the world have said that is the most difficult thing to do that can take weeks just to thrash out the one thing that you want to say but it's absolutely imperative and the sad thing that amanda said what are you trying to say and they said we're not sure they haven't done the hard work that's the reality they're playing around with songs but they haven't thought about what they want to say yeah well it was a cool image but they didn't know what they wanted the image to communicate yeah and if you know honestly there's like it's not that long ago that you know i would just search for anything that fit you know like um and i think what helped me was then at the same time i had a role here overseeing all the creative stuff we did and so people are throwing a million ideas at you and you're just like but what what's it mean like what's it got to do with anything like it's great like um you know it's going to be visually stunning but like how does that connect to and so what really helped kind of sort through what ideas we would go with whether we're talking about openers or whether we're talking about album songs titles you know artwork color schemes for church all the stuff that we we still do one of the things that really helped me was going okay like dad sets them you know dad basically every february sets the vision for the church and he has a theme and it's you know um and so there's our anchor point so everything we do this year from uh our album title to um it doesn't have to be exactly the same but it all has to at some in some way kind of point back to this and there's a lot of trust in that but that helps bring clarity even to what you choose to go with and what you don't why pick this idea or this song over that song because it's helping kind of create this bigger picture that we've got to trust that god is wanting to say at the moment for our church yeah it's really good i almost wonder if 30 minutes early we kind of answered the question of the like the name of the master class about like the balance between poetry and clarity because i wonder if the that balance is fined by finding a key theme and expressing it in the most accurate and in the most accurate way would you agree with that sentiment look um as a teacher clarity is absolutely fundamental to me in the in the scriptures the bible says in the habit chapter 2 god has given a revelation to the prophet and he says i want you to write down the revelation and make it clear so that a herald can run with it it's absolutely vital that we get a revelation from god in other words we see what he sees but then we've got to communicate it in such a way that is clear to our audience and many of us we just are self-indulgent when it comes to creativity we write because we love to write we write poetry because we think it's fun we're not thinking about communication we're thinking about the process of creativity and the connection between clarity and poetry is the responsibility that we have as communicators as songwriters as lyricists to communicate truth to the people are going to sing our songs this is not about lyric writing it's not about me sitting on my own which is what i do writing poetry for myself just to express my feelings this is about communicating a revelation to a world i have to take responsibility for that so that's where the clarity comes in i get the revelation from god god says what do you see i see what he sees he says well done you've seen correctly that that's the image in the back of my mind now i've got to make it clear and i've got to think audience the herald has to run with it and that's what i've got to think in mind all the time can the herald run with what i'm giving them right that's great so do you think within that then is where's where's the room or is the room for uh i guess a concept or a sorry a lyric that won't necessarily be perceived by everyone on first second even 10th well that's that's the that's the paradox of parables right so matthew 13 said i'm going to speak in parables and it says the eyes that we'll see we'll see and the eyes that won't see whencey so he's using images that not everybody got straight away you had to almost desire to get it and he did it on purpose right we often think the communication is all about uh clarity you know obvious yeah but it's not necessarily obvious because the kingdom of god is not obvious yeah but it's got to be accessible yeah and and there's this balance i mean you know there are occasionally times when we do let things through that we're not it's not that they're theologically wrong but we're not quite clear on and just to pick on joel um it might sound wild i um you know your verse lyrics i get because i'm a musician my husband hasn't got a clue what he's singing you know when we talk about i lost the pitch he moved the score um your my wayward notes your sweetness said to me sitting next to me what's that about i said i don't know ask ask amanda but because your chorus is so clear about what the song's about um you know it works but it probably doesn't work in all churches because i can't imagine a lot of people singing it going what i mean you know sometimes it's like i think you know there's a very simple concept but um to me it's it's like there's so much in like just in the concept of music as if we've talked about this and there's so much in there that um parallels and embodies i just think what what i see when i read the word you know it's little things like i know you can get hung up on this stuff like and pattern recognition can lead you astray as much as it draws you to truth but you know like every single time like you know i see that number 12 in the bible you know it seems to be like in excess of god showing up you know like there's they walk away with 12 baskets you know um of extra you know um 12 vats of extra wine you know like uh over and over and so it reminds me that there's 12 notes on a you know i know on a keyboard and that you know there's just infinite there's more than enough in there and so these little things like they help they what you know what they do it just helps me trust god that like he's he's in stuff and um and he's in he's it's all the way through the word but it's you know there's 12 disciples like there's more than enough in us there's you know 12 hours in a day there's more than enough in there so these things these parallels now i've tried to write a song about that but it's it's kind of pointless and it's not a song um but in that thought you know as this idea is if you know when notes if we're a melody if god's singing his tune through his people and every now and then you know like he's not after perfection one of us could you know play the wrong note but it's not the end of the world you know like god has this beautiful way of like resolving the score into something beautiful tension and resolve like the minor fall the major lift like you know that that that concept of like tension and their release it's just such a beautiful picture of god's redemptive nature that exists in everything that's beautiful about story move films you know uh music life you know and so that i guess that's all i'm trying to say and there was an opportunity to say it there and i kind of figured you know what it's it's this is doesn't need to be like the song that everybody sings it kind of it was sitting there and and so it works i'm going to live with it and you know what i've also learned along the way like i've got regrets i'm like i should never put that in a song like i ruined a good song because i was overthinking it more often than not but there's other times where people get it way down the road you know and and i'm cool with living like i remember when i was growing up that there were so many things in the songs i was seeing and that i just i i didn't understand um and there were scriptures as well you know and like even like you know uh and the government should be upon his shoulders i was like what does that even mean like why are we singing that like you know i was a kid but i would always remember like that that line you know or like the thoughts around it and and same with so many different songs like you know over years and years and years what you don't realize is because i'm asking questions about something i get to a point where there's the revelation hits home and usually because it's getting you get a greater revelation of the gospel and who jesus is and so it brings light to everything else and you go oh okay great and so i have actually you know like it's not that intentional but like i love the idea of putting thoughts out there that cause people to ask questions and and often i don't feel like i need to answer them as much as just let people do that journey for themselves because that's how i've learned is like by being curious you know um and so it goes back to your question about you know the the song poses questions as as well as as well as answering questions and i i really like that idea so i do i do exactly the same but as an educator i want people to grow as well so i actually purposefully when i'm doing a television program or a message i will use words that i know people don't know on purpose because i want them to know them so i i use them and i put them out there and i in on one of the programs i've just on a television i i used a word that isn't even in the dictionary but it used to be and because i and i did it on purpose because i it's such a cool word but here's the thing like every word is made up like someone made the word up you know like i always think about that like there's not even a word in the dictionary i said neither are the are the other words in the dictionary like someone made them up you know every every book that i've written i've i've written i've made up words on purpose i'm with you i just feel like i just feel like this i'm just going to use this in future emails to you amanda like robert said i hear you yeah but but they can't be all made up words actually actually that that's let me just bring back a thought which is one of the things i'm always harping on when we have our conversations is that when we're writing worship we are putting words into people's mouths we are writing words that we want the congregation to sing and we haven't got the luxury of a poem where you've got it on the page and you look at it and the way it's set out helps you to understand it and you can re-read it you are just going you hear it you've sung it and you're on to the next line and if you haven't grasped it then what are you helping people to bring to god you know and i think we we have um more room in united's albums to stretch because people will listen to an album and they will reflect on it but i'm intrigued by the fact that you know some of the songs that get sung the most of us you know worldwide are our simplest because they just express those core truths that people can go yeah i can sing that i understand that i'm singing this singing in spirit and in truth to god and i think there's room for both but that's why i think we need to always bear that in mind when we're writing our worship albums which is what you know um rubes and ben can do so well brian was complaining about it the other day i'll just say the art i i agree because i'm you know i'm not great at it like the art of brevity is like to me that's like um it's something i desperately personally chasing after you know like because there's a power to it and you know i i said this room and yesterday because i mean like the way you're able to wrap up so much in in what you know basically to be brief like this that is like a whole art into itself you know yeah and so like i don't know how much you like think about it or like if you frame it or like if you have to but it's yeah i mean you know listening to these guys talk i mean i'm in awe of the way these guys write and approach the lyric and even the way they think about it and uh i don't know because i i've always thought in terms of um word made flesh word made flesh what um what can people embody that's great you know what can people sing and uh be transformed by but like really take on and and and uh and not forget and uh and these these guys are able to do it in a whole other way than you know i've tried to do what they do and and um and i get stuck you know um because like i think i think my riding is maybe a bit more like a hammer it's just it's just really simple kind of you know uh thing that just i don't know just strikes at the kind of the main whatever and um that's just the way i've approached it and and i guess those are when i think about the songs that have meant the most to me even growing up and then kind of the early years of when i when i got saved and i was just holding to god those were really simple songs and i think there's there's um something like that that i keep trying to go for but it doesn't mean it always comes easily no and i think it's the richness of what comes out of our house and that's just the grace of god is that we have this diversity so will i which we never probably thought would turn into a worship song has taken off and yet that is the complete opposite to just a few words you know and it undoubts me every time i sing it yeah i was going to say that as well i think that's the beauty of team is that um if they're all uh just really simple songs then i think that that would you know that's that'd become real samey and and i think it all works together and it all complements each other which thank god for that that's awesome yeah so good should we have time for yeah we do do you guys want to ask some questions all right first hand oh yeah are you coming on oh we got all right yeah thank you guys so much for your ministry appreciate you my question is what role do you see doubt and even darkness playing with the gathered church singing and i'm thinking of like psalm 88 you know which expresses just anguish and grief and it even ends saying my closest companions are darkness and i think we do a great job at celebration but i would just love to hear you guys share on on what role you see now 2019 as the gathered church sings is there any space for some of those more doubtful dark places you know even in our worship i think it's a great question and i have the privilege of teaching on the psalms so psalm 88 final line darkness is my dearest friend or deepest friend it's a very gloomy lament that one um there's an interesting dynamic and this is the thing that i always think about i mean because doubt is a part of our our christian experience absolutely but and under laments often express that but in worship today we are the other side of the resurrection and because of that we always have to bear that in mind in the worship that we write and so think think about it in a congregation at any one point and we looked at all of you there'll be some of you going through crisis of faith some of you going through doubt a lot of you hopefully are feeling really great at the moment because you're in the middle of a worship conference and you've just had a midnight massive so if i write a song that celebrates the victory of christ everybody can sing it because we can confess it because it's truth if i write a song that goes i am so utterly miserable life is terrible it might be real but most the congregation are going to feel really awkward singing it so writing worship um these days the other side of the resurrection we can confess truth but there always has to be a journey that that people can identify with i mean you've written some raw songs but they've always come with that sense of yeah there's there's a resolution there's hope um yeah um i i think ben and i often share songs with each other that like we will never sing or present to you i mean i will just you know listen it's much to what um you know reuben was saying before and the idea that the diversity is great like um and same with the way people preach and the way churches look and what um how we worship all those different things it should be as broad as i love what you said about being on the other side of the resurrection to me that's where we've got this resolve that's the gospel resolve is what we're talking about so it exists but i do think that we're scratching the surface when it comes to um where we go when it create when it comes like the negative space you know and and people rarely give credit to the negative space in anything um but it's the space by which whatever image it is that we either reading or seeing is revealed and um you know all my favorite artists are just so brilliant with their use of not the thing you're looking at but the thing that gives it contrast and so it's the same with our songs like i think i think um for us as hillsong church because most of what we're doing is so broad um it it definitely puts certain limitations in there but limitations to me are uh like the greatest opportunity to become creative like how do you find something that is simple that connects to to all the the fits the boxes but is like something you've never seen before how do you make something as simple as you know waking up to god's mercy every day feel like you're hearing it for the first time um and and the bible is full of it and that's what the human experience is too because it's like oh my goodness i just got another revelation of god's grace is exactly the same as every other revelation i've had of god's grace only this one is so much deeper and like that's the journey um and so i really honestly believe that that's like the mantle on a new generation of writers and people who kids who think different who've grown up see the songs that i grew up with in church are very different to the songs that we sing now and my prayer is that you know um that the songs that you know kids are singing in 20 30 years from now are very different to the ones that we're singing now um and yet they're still going to carry like it's like a thread it's beautiful and so i think there's room for us to write worship songs that from the outs it's like is is that a worship song and i just think you need to know what your audience is and and i think that's the biggest thing and you got to be okay with it so like i'm very settled in my heart going no one's going to this isn't going to be the biggest song in the world but this might connect to someone that all those songs that people are singing in church every sunday and and i've found real purpose in that and the way i do that is to think often about a specific person and it could be someone i know or it could be somebody that i make up and what i mean by that is i'll just imagine that there's a 21 year old guy who's grown up in a christian family has like an understanding of god but he just he's never really experienced god's grace for what it is and he feels like an outcast and he's actually angry at god because he has not the right perspective of who god is and so how am i gonna write a song that one finds that guy's ears um and two causes that guy to listen or to understand in a new way and whether or not it ever achieves that goal it helps me frame what that song is and make decisions on even when we get to talking about it i'm like i'm okay if we never sing this on a sunday you know like we can maybe use it for a communion item one time or not and let that go and um it's funny because i think oceans was one of those songs you know that look no one's going to sing this in church you know and uh you know the conversation on that was you know um spirit lead me where my trust is without borders and and what does that mean and and um you know i think yeah it is clear but it's it's also like you know it was it's okay and and so then a song like that does what it does and it's it just connects with people who like most people who don't go to church they don't know why they even listen to the song and and and i don't even i still don't know what they love about it but that's the breath of god in it so you've got to be willing to take those risks but this is my thing i kind of implore you guys to do is like go there and don't be afraid of it and take those risks where you can and it's much easier to do it like we're talking about when you haven't got anything to lose um and so i would challenge you to not be afraid of of owning those spaces and seeing it as a mission field for your art um yeah i hope that made sense yeah yes please yeah good all right all right again again so with having other people in mind but also like wanting to write congregational i feel like we talked a lot about authenticity during this conference can we talk a little bit about how to write authentic but still congregational and still for that one person in a sense i could i could try in that i think for me i don't know if i don't know if you guys i think you might well i know i'm interested enough how would you approach it but for me when i'm writing um my goal posts aren't necessarily like is this congregational that's not my target so my target is is this exactly what i'm trying to say is it honest and is it um i guess is this a song that i want to play to god like is this actually what i'm trying to say and then i'm kind of happy with whatever happens with that so if it lands congregational then amazing and if it doesn't then that's just not what that song was meant to be and i yeah so for me i think hopefully that would then come that doesn't mean it's always authentic like i can get in my head but um i think the goalposts of that help me and also for me anytime i've set out to try to write a congregational song it just ends up being a terrible song i think i i think that's really yeah i praised the name man that was terrible [Laughter] but you know what's funny about that is true story no true story so that day we sat and we tried to write we set up we literally um we had the goal post of writing a song that was congregational and we tried for ages and it was terrible so we went for dinner and came back and we were like well let's just write a really weird irish hymn and that's what president m ended up becoming it's beautiful but we have to be authentic whatever we're writing you know if you try and write a congregational song and you think oh we need a song on grace and you have no personal revelation of grace you're wasting your time you know whatever we write must be authentic must come out of authentic experience so you know i think and then it may end up being sung by a congregation or not but at least it's come from you your song piece beautiful song came out of very real experience specific experience but you wrote words that we can all identify with in terms of anxiety and so on you know and pieces of promise he keeps you know wow what a line um for all of us but can i just reiterate what you said about the resurrection and and you know the idea of redemption because when you're communicating you can be going through the worst season in your life you can feel depressed you can just have a tragedy in your family and you can't see a way out that's probably you can write a song there but it's probably not going to help very many people other than get them depressed along with you so it's the same with a message i will often wait until i've found an answer and then say i've been here i know what it feels like i'm being totally authentic but there's hope at the end of the tunnel rather than just right in the middle of it saying i'm i'm feeling depressed guys anyone with me that that's not that both are authentic but one is helpfully authentic yeah and it's also the reason why metaphor is so useful you know because i feel like every image you've got honestly every image in nature is reflective of you know evening and mourning like you know death and new life you know like um it's all there like the gospel is written through everything and so you know um i mean this is what we love to do in particular is there's a word for this you might know it because you if you not make up a word but you know like it's it's a word for you know how like a certain pattern exists through every part of something living like a tree if you break it down to a branch it looks like a tree at a root level it looks like a tree if you go into its leaf it looks like a tree in the leaf and basically all the way through it it looks like a tree um do you know what that word is it's giving me a challenge i'm gonna make up one and you're gonna preach a fantastic sermon on and i can't wait for it but i i guess the point is like like it's in everything like them so the more you look at something you know you dive into it you'll see the same thing repeated over and over through the lifespan of whatever that thing and and someone told me this and i don't know if it's true and if there's a scientist here just correct me and later but that it exists apparently in every living thing there's just repetitive uh images of of what that thing is over and over and i just that's interesting and it just tells me that god's words written through everything and and so it's there's so much to discover just peel the layers back and um and in that space i feel like there's means of expressing all the like the full spectrum of say the human condition the tough stuff the hard stuff the beautiful stuff the regenerate like man the fact that death is like the greatest thing for us as christians like think about that you know like death is this morbid idea but like the idea of dying to ourselves the idea that death is like the beginning of something new like the idea that it was death that it was a cross that it was such the most morbid picture that existed in society that is now the symbol of hope for all humanity like come on so like we can use anything you know like if we have that redemptive understanding of of what we have on this side of the cross yeah can i add one more thing yeah um i think that we should just be careful like for a song to be congregational it doesn't mean we're talking about light or no no depth to it um i think what makes appraiser name congregational the theme for one thing but also the fact that it's d the way the melody sits the simplicity of it is four um syllables for every line um it's really singable and really memorable it's easy for somebody who can't sing to sing it and uh and i think that's what makes it congregational and then the fact that it's just so universal as far as it's the biggest theme we have you know death and resurrection um but it's not light there's an incredible amount of depth amount of depth to it yeah that's really interesting well i think that is actually all we have time for can we give a big round of applause to these guys of course i know i could keep i could keep going um just before we go i want to tell you guys about amanda's book have you guys seen this on the resource this is an amazing book and it's for songwriters so if you're in this room which and consider yourself a songwriter which i know most you are because you put your hands up um i would strongly encourage you to get a hold of this and it's great i've read through it and um the it's it's a it's a second edition right so this is just a recent update so even if you've had it before you could go back double dip that'll be amazing do you want to say anything about play i'll give it away yes oh amazing nah all right who wants it you do hand it first oh there you go amazing right well just where we go robert would you mind praying for us sure father god you you know every story in this room and every person in this room and every place where their story will be told and father i pray that you will give us all not only the gift because you've already gifted us but the grace and the strength and the courage to fulfill our purpose on this earth and i pray that out from this room will come extraordinary songs that will be sung by millions of people that will enable them to engage with who they are as people and more importantly who you are as god and as our redeemer and savior and i pray that you would just equip us and grace us and strengthen us and bless us as we take hold of that for which you have taken hold of us we ask it in jesus name amen amen amen thank you so much guys enjoy the rest of your day really appreciate you

Channel: Hillsong Church

Views: 14,344

Keywords: jesus, hillsong, praise, worship, online, church, joel houston, united, benjamin, ben, hastings, robert fergusson, reuben morgan, writing lyrics, the balance between poetry and clarity, songwriting, co-lab, wcc, worship conference, hillsong worship and creative conference, creative conference, 2019, wcc19

Id: 7ZjPtebXDL4

Length: 59min 27sec (3567 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020