Here’s the video that Kingsway have kindly put together for Christ Be In My Waking, the last track on my new album The Journey.

The starting point for the song was the famous 16th century ‘God be in my head’ prayer, but I wanted to apply it in such a way that it helped us to recognise the closeness of God at every hour of the day, and every season of life – in the joys and the sorrows, in the process and the crisis – and I hope that both the song and the brilliant video help to bring this home.

While there’s a strong argument for saying “yes”, it is clear from Scripture and church history that the people of God have always benefited from contemporary expressions of eternal doctrine applied and expressed in a way that their generation can easily grasp. The meaning and content of Scripture should always be central to the songwriter’s work; but there is value in moving beyond the mere reciting of Scripture in order to explore the meaning, much as a preacher might do in a sermon.

The first thing we must realize is that worship songs play a significant part in our lives; not only for us as musicians, but for all those who attend our services. Our congregations may hear some fantastic biblical teaching on a Sunday morning, but when they leave they’re more likely to be humming one of the worship songs than reciting a section of the sermon.

Let’s face it: songs stick in the mind in a way that the spoken word does not. And that means that in our daily lives we can recall truth when it is contained in a song. For example, I still sing the old chorus “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” when I’m trying to remember Galatians 5!

This fact was not lost on great preachers of the past. For Luther, Newton and Wesley, the central message of their songs was the truth they were preaching in their sermons. In fact, William booth and others changed the words to popular secular songs of the day in order to better fix biblical truth in the minds of believer and unbeliever alike.

This is part 2 in a series of thoughts on Does it matter what we sing? More coming soon…

I noticed an article recently in a Christian publication claiming that a number of well known, much-used worship songs were actually unbiblical. The writer’s arguments concerning specific songs were not particularly convincing, but it did raise an issue that affects all those of us involved in leading and participating in church worship: how much do we take care to ensure what we sing is true? And does it really matter anyway?

Yes.

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll try and post up some thoughts on the Role of Songs, Doctrine and Experience, Theology and Poetry and Psalm, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

I’ll tweet once something’s up if you’re interested…