I want to honor God through my music. Advice?

I’ve been making music for a couple of years now, and I’m starting to get really good at it. I’ve made two albums that were kinda okay, but the songs with lyrics don’t feel genuine to me. Right now I’m almost done re-doing the instrumental tracks from those albums to re-release for free/pay-what-you-want so that I can feel a bit of closure on that subject. In the meantime, I have some great ideas for another album, but it requires that I do this for God’s glory and not my own.

This is the problem: I love making music and I want to honor God through my music, but I am so easily distracted from my true purpose that I usually end up making something shallow even if it’s well produced. I don’t want to settle for this, so I need some help. I want to hear any insights you have about worshiping God while you are making music and how to make music that other’s can worship God to. For example: when I listen to David Crowder Band, it almost immediately turns my thoughts to God. I get chills from the message and come out with a deeper understanding of who God is. I know feelings aren’t everything, but they are a huge part of who we are as people. I want to be able to genuinely create something that others can genuinely worship God to.
Any thoughts and verses would be greatly appreciate. I really want to do God’s will, but I’m human and prone to making mistakes. I want to start this project right, so I’ll need all the ammo I can get.

Thanks so much for your time. God bless!

heya, I like your enthusiasm.

I just want to caution you though, it seems like you’re getting hung up on the lyrics thing.  Mate, honoring God happens when we live for Him, so basically in everything we do.  So if you produce music really well and acknowledge the gift is from Him, then you’re honoring God.  I can worship God and who He is through music written by people who wouldn’t call themselves christian.  

Joel’s dead on. Ultimately, you’re making music that pleases Him. If that’s truly the case, you’ll be making music that YOU LIKE. If you don’t like your lyrics or they seem fake to you, you’re not doing what is really in your heart.

Remember, all bands have different members. Not everybody writes the lyrics. Not everybody writes every melody. 

You are part of the body of Christ. You cannot be the mouth and the finger. If you are trying to do that, you are being dysfunctional in your faith. If you are expected by others to do both, then they are dysfunctional and are pushing their dysfunctions on you.

This is one reason why I disagree that every Christian has to speak in tongues (or some other physical sign) to be considered “spirit filled” or “spirit led”. It’s simply not biblical. Now, I’m not denying that that’s a sign of it or that those are spiritual gifts, but we often get hung up on the importance of certain gifts over others and forget that they are ALL important or God wouldn’t give them to us.

You were FORMED to perform a function and that function is something nobody else is exactly equipped to do. Lyrics may not be a part of it. 

These guys are wrong and have no clue. 

If you don’t say Jesus at least once every 42 seconds of your track, it does not honor God. 

i totes agree with stumblebum. and no matter how tempted you are to reverse the “Jesus” vocal sample to be cool DONT do it. it’d be blasphemous and your ticket to the rapture will be cancelled

Alright stumblebum and xm official. I will keep that in mind while I’m creating music even if I don’t feel led by the spirit or creatively inspired. (maybe I’ll make an awful and sacrilegious parody of that idea some day. . .)

Okay, I’ll try writing lyrics again and I’ll post a demo here when it’s done. If that doesn’t turn out, then I’ll drop the matter. I suppose what I really need is to be more in tune with the Spirit. Do any of you have any Bible verses or passages that have spoken to you lately? I read the Bible regularly, but I usually don’t get much out of it unless I have something specific to focus on. Also, how do you guys stay focused when you are praying? When I pray, it seems like I either get distracted or I try too hard and end up feeling like it’s forced. I know that we’ll never be perfect, but I want to communicate with God to the best of my abilities.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

“Okay, I’ll try writing lyrics again…”

And… what if now isn’t the right time for you to write lyrics? You’re going to give up b/c you can’t force yourself to?  That’s just setting yourself up for failure. Yoda was right in one respect: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Don’t even blame not being in tune with the Spirit on this. The simple fact is that maybe God doesn’t intend for you to write lyrics right now. It’s not a matter where you pick this up or drop it. There are different seasons to life. Now might not be the one for you to write lyrics. Six weeks or six years from now it may be. What is important is that you are always open to what God wants you to do at this time.

“When I pray, it seems like I either get distracted or I try too hard and end up feeling like it’s forced.” 

Well, maybe it is. Paul wrote “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. He’s not talking about praying endlessly. He’s not talking about big huge prayers that are meant to impress. He’s talking about little short chats with God throughout the day. The others are fine, if you’re not faking them, but you don’t force a conversation with your friends right? So why would you with God? 

Even Jesus pretty much said it: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matt 6:7). So if you don’t have a lot to say, don’t worry about it. God would rather hear what’s really on your heart than a ton of words that you’re just saying to keep the conversation going longer.

There you go Dave getting into theology.  I would love to hear you pray in tongues.  I would catch it on my cell phone and turn it into a sample!

 

Seriously though, you’re right about what you said.  I just like messin’ with sasquatch!

Whatever Love-booger.

• This reply was modified 124 days ago by  Dave Richards.

think of the power, the beauty, the majesty, the love, the glory of God. I like to focus on the uplifting side of things

Stumblebum   If you want to add to a song.  Pray, write and share.  Write from the heart.  Will pray for guidence.  Alot of what all the other guys said is true.

I do agree that it is important to be actively worshiping while making music.  It is also important that we are inspired by the Spirit and not just trying to make music in our own power.  I would suggest setting aside some prayer time specifically to ask God to give you ideas about how to compose, what to compose, the subject matter of your tracks, style, etc.  

If it is hard for you to get stuff out of scripture without doing a specific topic, I would suggest looking up praise and worship in the Bible.  What do you think worship in Spirit and truth means?  If you have no real idea, pray about it, that God will give you revelation on the subject.  If we are writing worship music, it is important that we are doing it according to what pleases God.  Also music does not have to have lyrics to be worship or praise.

 LITV: Colossians Chapter 3

[16] Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and exhorting yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

 LITV: Ephesians Chapter 5

[19] speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and praising in your heart to the Lord

There is a spiritual dynamic to music that is internal, where we sing in our hearts to the Lord.  I believe this should be the place that inspires the external productions.  Out of a praising heart we should make music, instead of trying to make music to get a praising heart.

From another post that I did that sort of relates:

A secular producer cannot by nature make music according to the Spirit or in Truth. But also because a producer might be a Christian and might compose “Christian” music, the composition may or may not be pleasing to God. If we are to play music for others to worship, it would only make sense to play music that is pleasing to the Lord. There are also a number of compositions that have Christian lyrics that have been composed by wordly composers, like the setting of the mass, which is full of Christian lyrics. These compositions will never please the Lord, seeing that the composer never loved the Lord, and without love they are nothing but a clanging brass and a sounding cymbal so to speak.  Without the Spirit and without knowing the Truth they cannot therefore actually worship the living God.

• This reply was modified 122 days ago by  graphite412.

Wow, these are some great replies! Big thanks to Dave Richards and graphite412 for the scripture references. Graphite412 answered the question I intended to ask quite well. I’ll be praying about “worshiping in Spirit and Truth” because I am not entirely sure about that topic. If any of you would pray with/for me on this topic, I’d appreciate it! My name is Jared DeCook (just making sure our omniscient God gets the right address).

About lyrics: I won’t write any unless I feel inspired to. I’ll keep praying about this one.

Thanks, Dave, for the insight on prayer and thank you all for being so helpful!

No problem man.