Simplicity

I used to lead worship for children's ministry. We wrote a lot of the songs that we played because at the time (it's been about 8 years ago) there just were not a lot of simple songs with any depth. Children's worship requires simplicity...even when the songs were simple, I found myself giving explanations for conceptual truth because so many of the things that we worship and praise God for (His goodness, His grace, His provision) are conceptual in nature.

Kid's are so concrete. We sang a song that promised God would be "there when I'm in trouble." One kid caught me after church to ask me if God really was there when he got in trouble for hitting his sister. "Well, yes," I told him, "He is...but that's not really what I meant in the song..."

With kid's, worship is a lot about teaching them how to worship. I'm not talking about form, I'm talking about heart. Children don't understand big, conceptual words like surrender, communion or intimacy. And they have a narrow understanding of things like celebration, joy and freedom. So, there was a lot of teaching and modeling the first year. Then came the breakthrough...I've never seen such true heart worship as those children displayed.

That's when they started teaching me. It truly is a gift to be simple. Didn't Jesus tell us that we can't enter the Kingdom unles we become like one of these children? I find it very difficult to divorce myself from my theological conceptualism and just come to God as a child comes to his dad. But that is the key to heart worship.

I heard an interview with worship leader, Chris Tomlin, where he commented that he likes to write songs with simple choruses. And wow! he writes some fantastic songs. Here is a video clip of one of my favorite simple songs. It struck me that in spite of it's simplicity, the audience felt compelled to stand though no instructions were given to do so.



I want to write songs that call people to their feet to worship the majesty of God.