Stuart Townend

Worship in the local church

Before we begin to think about worship in the local church, it’s important for us to make sure we have a vision for the local church. Not just ‘church’ in some abstract way – your local church, the place you go to every Sunday, the bunch of people you meet with, that bunch of weird folks who make up your church. Think about them, picture them in your mind – that’s God’s plan for changing the world! Frightening, isn’t it?

Now, if you were planning to gather together a group of people to change the world, or at least the area in which you live – would you have chosen that group of people? Would you have chosen yourself? Possibly not! Yet God’s ways are different from ours!

Songs of Praise Top Ten hymns

I was recently asked to take part in a BBC Songs of Praise programme, where we were giving our perspectives on the top ten hymns as voted by Songs of Praise viewers in a telephone poll earlier in the year. Remarkably, “In Christ alone” made it into the top ten, which either means it’s becoming accepted in a broad range of church settings, or my Mum’s phone bill was huge that month…

The more I thought about the programme, the more I realised what a fantastic opportunity it was to share the gospel with millions of people by talking about the content of these hymns. And I thought I would share these brief musings with you – done, in the finest traditions of top ten lists, in reverse order…

Worship in Spirit and Truth Part 1

Part One - the context of John 4

John 4 is a passage familiar to those involved in local church worship. It is obviously important to us all, but it particularly grabs the attention of the worship leader, as it’s the only time that Jesus specifically addresses the subject of worship, using this phrase ‘in spirit and truth” twice.

But it’s always seemed a very peculiar Biblical context for this theme. I’d have expected the chapter to begin, “Jesus was teaching the pharisees and the teachers of the law in the temple one day, and the subject of worship came up…” Perhaps it would have made me feel more important as a worship leader, that Jesus would have seen the subject as important enough to discuss it with the spiritual leaders of the day – after all, it’s always high on my list of topics to discuss with church leaders! But no. Jesus is taking a break. He arrives at a well in the heat of the day, he’s tired and thirsty. And a woman comes to the well.

How to write hymns

Here's an article I wrote recently for the BBC hymnwriting competition.

There are probably more hymns and worship songs being written today than in any period of church history. But relatively few will stand the test of time. And that has always been the case: for every “Amazing grace” or “And can it be”, you can bet there are several hundred trite, interminably dull ditties that did the rounds at the time, but have now thankfully faded into blissful obscurity.

So how can we make sure what we write is worth singing for years to come? Here are a few ideas that I try to put into practice myself:

1. Study the Scriptures. The best hymns demonstrate insight and understanding of the Bible, and consequently bring the truths of the Christian faith to life. If you don’t know the message of the gospel, you can’t write something that will enable others to worship in spirit and truth.

2. Be poetic, not pompous. Sometimes when people set out to write a hymn, they use phrases which might sound 'hymny’, but actually mean very little. Make your phrases mean something!

3. Combine objective truth and subjective response. When a hymn is just a statement of theological truth, it may be accurate, but it can be dry. Equally, when a hymn is just about how we feel, it’s wishy washy. The best hymns powerfully express the emotions of the worshipper, but as an emotional response to the objective truth of the gospel.

4. Look for musical dynamics. A hymn should have musical peaks and troughs, and there should be a sense of building to a climax where the melody soars while expressing the main theme of the hymn.

5. Make every line count. I see hymns that contain a few good ideas, but some of the lines are clearly there as just ‘filler’, and let the whole thing down. Don’t just stick in a line because it rhymes, or because you couldn’t think of anything else to say.

6. Prune it mercilessly. Once you think you’ve finished, go through it carefully, and get rid of anything that distracts from the main theme you’re expressing. Better to have two compact, punchy verses than four rambling, unfocused ones.

So get writing!

Copyright © 2004 Stuart Townend.