When Worship is All About Me

I really hate this song.

And what, you may ask, is wrong with it?  This song embodies the self-centered way in which we have come to worship.  The word “I” appears 27 times in the lyrics, not counting repeats of the chorus.  The song is also repetitive, dull, and selfish.  The phrase “You are mine” in reference to Jesus makes me cringe every time.  This song lacks any form of humility whatsoever.

It’s not that I have anything against songs that speak about our relationship to our Creator.  The problem is when the song seems to turn things around so that I become the focus instead of God.  Increasingly, praise and worship music falls flat.  The lyrics are often what I call “pseudopoetic,”  meaning they have metaphors that (I think) are supposed to sound brilliant but just end up coming across as nonsense.  They repeat the same few lines endlessly.  The tunes range from nearly impossible to follow to utterly boring.  Like the song above, they draw the attention back to me, me, me–I’m saved, chosen, blessed (the implication being you’re not).

I’m not saying that old-fashioned hymns are the answer.  (Although I do think it’s pretty telling that some songwriters are either putting old hymns in new settings or are putting music to the Psalms.)  After all, hymns contain language we retired decades ago and may not be relevant for understanding God now.  But we definitely need to move away from the garbage that is cluttering up our worship.  We need real songs that actually draw us toward God Himself; we need songs that cry out what’s really inside us–the full range of human emotion and experience; we need music that makes us want to be part of God’s plan for the world.

Songwriters, here’s my challenge to you: Go out there and create something, a new way to praise our God!