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Tristyn Bloom
Matthew Cantirino
Anthony Esolen
Gene Fant
Greg Forster
Matthew J. Franck
Collin Garbarino
Robert P. George
William J. Haun
Leroy Huizenga
Katherine Infantine
Joseph Knippenberg
David T. Koyzis
Robert T. Miller
Matthew Milliner
David Mills
Mark Movsesian
William Mumma
Nathaniel Peters
R.R. Reno
James R. Rogers
Russell E. Saltzman
Matthew Schmitz
Kevin Staley-Joyce
David Talcott
Anna Williams
As an English major I cringed at some of the recommended rhymes, but this advice is definitely right: “One thing in your song should always be on fire, be it our heart, our souls, this generation . . . Something needs to be in flames.” (h/t Colin Gormley)
We were reminded of this recent church service parody:
February 4th, 2013 | 9:58 pm
Thank God I am a Lutheran (ELCA).
February 5th, 2013 | 9:00 am
This video has at least one thing backwards: modern worship songs frequently avoid using consistently rhyming lyrics (even of the loose “above”/”enough” variety). Look at almost any Hillsong song for example. I’d guess that your average hymn is more likely to contain rhymes than your average praise song. And because hymns tend to use a stricter standard for rhymes, their rhymes would be more likely to consist of pairings you’ve heard many times before.
February 5th, 2013 | 10:46 am
Vincenzo, in the rhyming part, he throws in a reference to that — one of the “rhymes” he suggests isn’t even close, but is very cliche.
It’s true that in hymns the rhymes are more repetitive, but the overall lyric content is much more diverse and complex, especially in stuff written before the mid-19th century. They just manage to make sure that the words at the ends of the lines are rhymable.
February 5th, 2013 | 10:48 am
Anyway, he’s not setting up a comparison to hymns. I think he’s just pointing out that there’s a certain monotony to how worship songs are done. That doesn’t have to be “in contrast to hymns”; it could just be “in contrast to how a larger proportion of worship songs could be better.”
February 5th, 2013 | 2:14 pm
Ah yes, the I-V-vi-IV progression. At our church, the guitarists call it the “With or Without You” worship mode (especially with the delay or echo effect on). It gives our worship “The Edge.”
February 6th, 2013 | 2:10 pm
South Park nailed this in their parody of Christian rock: just google “Faith Plus One”, the band Cartman formed, where he took regular songs and inserted the name Jesus into them.
Instead, I’d suggest Lutheran chorales and good old Anglican hymns for Sunday service.
February 6th, 2013 | 6:36 pm
Irrefutable proof that Liturgy becomes non-existent when pop culture shows up.
February 17th, 2013 | 8:52 pm
Nice. Actually this song is more interesting than most of CCM. Most American hymns stick to diatomic progressions and pentatonic melodies, too. The progression isn’t necessarily the reason for the suckage; it’s the laziness of the lyricist, most times.
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