14 Worship Songwriting Tips from Professional Songwriters

Speaker 1 Here are 14 songwriting tips I learned from interviewing Matt Redman, Keith Getty, Christian Stanfield, Jeremy Riddle, Paul Balash, and people like that. First of all, all of them would tell you that you should be writing songs for your church. Why? Because you know better than anyone else what your church needs to be singing. You know the tragedies and the triumphs, the things they should celebrate and the things that they should cry out to the Lord. You know what language your people need to be singing to the Lord, and therefore God placed you there to help them express that praise to God. So all these famous songwriters would say, You, friend, you should seriously start writing songs for your church. And that’s not one of the tips. That’s just me exhorting you and encouraging you to start songwriting for your church. So here are the 14 tips for writing better worship songs, and then I have a question for you at the end. Number one, expect a 10 to one ratio for good songs. All of these songwriters said that they write at least 10 songs for every one good song that comes out of them.

Speaker 1 So have some realistic expectations and expect to write a lot of bad songs for every one good song. And the key takeaway here is just to write more. Tip number two is to use daily burst writing. Burst writing is a method where you sit down with a journal and a pen and you set a Timer for 15 minutes and you just uninterrupted let your thoughts flow and you write without editing. You don’t try to write anything good. You just write what’s on your heart, write what’s in your mind, and try to get into a flow state. At the end of that 15 minute Timer, you stop and you circle any interesting phrases, and maybe that’s the beginning of a song. So if you ever feel stuck, try burst writing. Tip number three, get the right people in the room. All of these songwriters said that they co-write constantly. Christian Sanfil said he only finished one worship song by himself. Now it’s important to get the right people in the room. Different people bring different gifts and skill sets to the table. Someone might be a creative genius where they’re just throwing out lots of bad ideas.

Speaker 1 The other person might be the editor where they’re like, That’s a bad idea. That’s a good idea. There might be a lyricist, and there might be someone who’s great at melody, but you want the different people to bring different strengths to the room, and you want to know those people well because great songs are birthed out of trusting relationships. All of the songwriters said, you’re going to have a lot of bad ideas before you have good ideas. And so you want to have psychological safety within your group. So make sure you really get to know the people that you’re writing with so that there’s trust. Songwriting tip number four, write from a theme. It might be a sermon series that your church is going through and you want to write the central point of that sermon series, it might be a theme from a conference that your song is going to be sung at, or it might be a theme that the Lord keeps bringing up in your life. But having a central theme allows you to focus your lyrics around that idea and keeps you from having writer’s block. Tip number five, picture your people.

Speaker 1 Picture specific individuals from your church and ask the question, what do they need to sing right now? What do they need to say? What truths do they need to be reminded of? What’s going on in their lives? What circumstances are they facing trials or tragedies or triumphs even. What words do you need to put on their lips? Tip number six, include theologians. Because you’re putting words on people’s lips, you want to make sure those words are biblical and truthful. And so include your pastors, include your elders, include any theologically knowledgeable person into the process, whether they’re in the room with you writing or you take the song to them after the fact. But make sure your people are singing truths and biblical truths at that. Tip number eight, fight for the right words. Never settle on a lame lyrics. The difference between a good song and a great song is that someone kept fighting until the words were perfectly right. Brooklyn Ligerwood from Hillsong found the bridge for What A Beautiful Name after seven or eight months of trying different things. She didn’t give up on the song, but she didn’t settle something that wasn’t right.

Speaker 1 And that song would not be what it is today without that bridge. Do you agree? So if a Lyric isn’t clear or if it isn’t good enough, don’t settle. Keep fighting for the right words. Tip number nine, avoid clichés. Just because it rimes doesn’t mean it’s the right Lyric combination. Great. Face, face. That’s been heard before. We need something new. We need something fresh. Make it authentic. Make it real. Make it from your heart. Make it what you actually want to say to God when no one’s around. Avoid Christianese. Avoid overused phrases, and say what your heart wants to say to the Lord. Avoid the cheese, avoid clichés. Tip number 10, land the hook. What phrase is the main point of the song? That’s the hook. You want to put that hook as, usually, the first line of the chorus and the last line of the chorus, but at least the last line of the chorus. And you want the lyrics before that hook to set that hook up so that it punches, so that it lands. You want to land the hook. And if you listen to a lot of country music, they do this really well.

Speaker 1 So land the hook. Songwriting tip number 11, outline your song just like a term paper, literally. Verse one is supposed to accomplish this. Verse two is supposed to accomplish this, the chorus accomplishes this, and the bridge accomplishes this. You want to have a role for each section of the song, and then you want to fill in the lyrics with the role in mind. You want your song to be structured just like a term paper and tell a story and give each section of the song their own assignment. Try it. I think it’ll help you have a more cohesive song. Tip number 12, record your entire songwriting session. Sometimes a lyrics or a melody comes out by accident, and once you sing it, it’s gone, you forgot it. You can’t remember it. You get to the end and you’re like, What was that one like? If you record the whole thing, you will never lose anything. So record the entire session, just set up your iPhone or your computer and just hit record, and that way you won’t lose any of your accidental nuggets of gold. Tip number 13, use collaborative tools. Anytime I’ve sat in a professional songwriting session, all the pros have a shared Google Doc open on their device.

Speaker 1 So that keeps the lyrics and the ideas in front of everyone at all times. And somebody’s lyrics that they added here shows up here, and now this person has an idea and adds it, and this person sees it, and it’s all happening collaboratively, simultaneously. So use Google Docs or a shared Apple note file or whatever, but keep it in front of everybody’s eyeballs. Tip number 14, expect bad before you get to the good. I love this phrase, To get to the gold, you got to dig through the dirt. The Worship Songwriting Cohort is part of the process, so keep digging. Those are 14 insights that I’ve learned from some of the best worship songwriters out there. And now I have a question for you. Would you be interested in a worship songwriting cohort with Patrick Mabury? Patrick Mabury has songs that have been streamed 50 million times, and his songs are played on the radio. He has multiple songs on the radio. And he and I are talking about doing either a cohort or a course inside the Worship Ministry Training Academy. I don’t want to do it unless there’s enough interest. And so if you’d be interested in a course or a songwriting cohort, live cohort, where you get to learn from Patrick Mayberry, would you be interested?

Speaker 1 Let me know. You can click the link below and fill out your information. If I get enough signups, we’ll go ahead and move forward with this project. But I would love to know if you’re interested in improving your worship songwriting by learning from a master like Patrick Mayberry. So let me know. Drop your email using the link below, and we will follow up with you if there’s enough interest. Otherwise, I hope to see you in the next video or inside the Worship Ministry Training Academy, where we have our 11 in-depth courses, our live monthly trainings, our live expert interviews, our done for you Ministry Admin systems, team devotional material, team discipleship material, plus a supportive community of over 1400 worship leaders from all over the globe who are taking their craft and calling seriously. Hope to see you inside the academy. It’s free to try for 15 days. You can go to worshipministrytraining. Com, and hopefully I’ll see you inside the academy. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the next video. God bless.