I got up this morning prepared to start my last week of teaching before Fall Break. Thankfully I have a few of my student's parents as friends on Facebook and saw one write that her boys were home from school today. I checked the date and realized that it is ALREADY October 3rd. I was looking forward to this day off on my calendar for awhile now. It just came a little sooner than expected. So I was able to catch up on reading a few blogs, respond to emails and ahhh... sit down with my guitar for a little songwriting. It didn't go so well. I kept writing in circles, and that always gets me frustrated. I would write a verse I liked, but couldn't decide a chorus that would fit. Then I'd write a chorus I liked, but no verses would come. So finally I stopped writing.

Later, I read a post by one of my favorite worship leaders, Vicky Beeching, about writing worship songs with no substance. She brought up some really great points.

"This might sound harsh, and it probably is, but I feel like as the modern worship movement gets older and older we are churning out a lot of the same words, when frankly they are so over-used, that their impact and meaning is diluted and tired."

This is exactly why I stopped writing today. I could have come up with something... spout out a few of the same ole words that I know rhyme together... but it would have been (excuse me, Kanye) heartless. That's the opposite of what a worship song should be. Her post made me think that perhaps there isn't a standard of what a modern worship song "should" sound or look like. If I begin to think that way... am I not sinking back into traditionalism? So the next time I sit down to write, I am going to branch out a bit. Maybe I won't have two verses, a chorus and a bridge. But it will still be a worship song to my God. And more importantly, it will come from the heart.