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by Winner Olmann I have never been particularly good at writing songs in a group setting. My natural tendency was to take an idea, leave the room, come back with a song and ask the group what they thought of it. Since this has generally worked for me in the past, I just thought that I was an introverted songwriter. In our last songwriting retreat in February I was challenged to write songs with a group. Needless to say, I was very nervous and was self-assured that this would not work out well for me. Fortunately, I was very wrong in my supposition. When we began with the session I discovered something that was groundbreaking: we didn’t start with writing a song. Instead, we took time to hear what was on everyone’s hearts and conversed about that. As we would do this, we would take what people were saying and added melodies to it and behold, songs were being birthed. Maybe you struggle with songwriting in a group like I did or perhaps songwriting in general is a challenge for you. I would like to take this time to share with you some techniques that I discovered from our last songwriting retreat that may possibly help you. 1. Start by talking •     Fight the temptation to just get started with the music. You can come up with cool chord progressions or guitar hooks later. Talk about subjects that are important to you. Maybe you’ve been reading a portion of scripture that has been teaching you something. Perhaps your church’s core values could spark conversation. Consider this as a valuable part of the songwriting process. 2. Ask a question, answer it, write it down •     One of the questions that we would ask when we would get stuck on a line is, “what are you trying to say?” As one person tries to answer this question, write down some of the key words and phrases that come out of the answer. You’d be surprised at the creative lines that can emerge from just letting someone say what’s on their heart. 3. Beat the line •     Sometimes you can beat the line or phrase that you came up with. Toss the phrase around amongst the group. Consider replacing one word in the phrase with another. Sometimes you may realize that you can’t beat it but many times you can! I can say that I am a better songwriter now than ever before. I say this with confidence because I am not just depending on my own experiences to craft songs but the experiences and ideas of a valuable team. I hope these techniques can help you as they have helped me. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. As we say at Family Church, “we’re better together”. Winner Olmann is worship pastor for Family Church Sherbrooke  

by Daniel Martin I have often questioned how the creative process of songwriting relates to Christian mission.  Spending time away in a room with other worship leaders and focusing all of my attention on writing a song seemed almost selfish to me.  I have always thought about my time in ministry in terms of serving the people God has brought into my life that need to hear the gospel, be loved on, encouraged, and poured into.  Could songwriting actually be part of God’s mission? The short answer is, yes. And here’s why. God knows the words on our tongue before we speak them. He knows our thoughts before we think them. And that means He knows every single lyric of every single song that we will ever write before we write them. He has placed these things within us and wants us to prayerfully surrender them back to Him as praise and honor due to Him.  This concept has been one of the most perplexing and awe-inspiring thoughts that I have had over the past few weeks of songwriting. After spending a week with professional Christian songwriters, I see more clearly than ever that God is very much at work within the songwriting process. It is similar to the art of sermon writing. God has ordained that the message of salvation be brought forth through preaching and teaching. A teaching pastor has to seek out exactly how and what scriptural insights God wants him to share to his congregation. In a similar fashion, He has given worship pastors the task of seeking out and writing the songs that God wants His church to sing to Him! It is humbling to think that He has called His church to write songs of praise for Him. It is also incredible to think that in all of our own creativity and effort, He already knows the finished product!  He could write His own praise. He doesn’t need me to do it. But He determined that it be this way. Somehow, reflection on my experiences and meditation on His Word draw something out of me that He wants to use to encourage His church. He is literally using our team to write the songs that the people in our church need right now. God has given our church a mission: Push back the darkness in the world and share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He uses songwriting and musical worship as a major vehicle to spur on our church to accomplish this Great Commission.  His Holy Spirit is sweeping through our region.  He is calling people out of darkness and into light daily.  His Spirit is stirring up great songs of triumph in us all, and He has made it very clear that He is using us as ministers of reconciliation through these songs in this rescue mission from Heaven. Daniel Martin is worship pastor for Family Church West.

by Christian Ramos “Pet Night”… I will never forget it… or I should say, some people won’t let me forget it. In my brain it all worked perfectly: people would invite friends to our outdoor amphitheater and everyone would bring their pet. It would turn out to be an incredible time, right? Well, it seemed that most could not see what I was envisioning. Let me tell you the whole story. Several years ago while our church was trying to find a pastor, our leadership team was trying to reconnect with our community by doing some outdoor events that would bring the whole family together on Wednesday evenings. While we were in the creative meeting to develop these incredibly engaging events, our team leader decided to have us come up with the best ideas we could. I was excited because, as many folks who work with me know, I love to share my “creative” ideas with everyone (sometimes a bit too much). So for several long, grueling and arduous minutes I thought about our community and the importance of an event that would redefine the relationship between them and our church. It was then that I felt a still small voice whisper in my ear and say: “Pet Night”. It was a revelation that could only come from above. It was (in my mind) the greatest and most exciting event our church was about to have. As it turned out, nobody liked the idea and in fact, most people still laugh about it many years later. After that experience it became easy for me to think that not every idea was a good idea. In fact, that is what I chose to learn.  I even thought that some ideas were just flat out bad. I allowed this thinking to permeate my creative process and it even spilled into our creative endeavors within the worship ministry. Unknowingly, “Pet Night’ was still haunting my creative process many years later. It wasn’t until February of this year after we made the decision to bring some extremely gifted songwriters into our songwriting retreat that I started to think differently. While learning from the Pros I realized that they valued every idea that came out of each person. They chose to chase down ideas that I would have never even considered in a million years. It was as if they knew something I didn’t. It was as if every idea was a good idea. As I worked with them and began to see how intentional they were about making every idea count, I began to change my thinking. I saw our team blossom as they were appreciated for every thought that was shared. That appreciation helped our worship leaders develop a healthy sense of confidence in the songwriting process that we had never been able to achieve before. As I sat down days later and began to ponder upon the spiritual implications of that lesson in my life, I realized that God has been telling …