An old pop music producer once said that there are really only four kinds of song a person can write: "I love you/I hate you/go away/come back!" That's a funny observation.

When we, believers, sing our songs of worship, not only do we praise God through them, but we preach to ourselves. As we sing the truth of who it is we're worshipping, as well as honoring God, it can be so helpful to us. Worship is about magnifying the right things. It can be so easy to let the struggles of this become all consuming, and we must not ignore them. But when we worship, instead of magnifying and focusing on those things, we magnify and focus on the name, the strength, the power, the grace of Jesus. When we do that, it puts everything into perspective.

The church has been under-fathered and over-mothered.

As a writer of worship songs, I have a hunger to write deep songs of passionate reverence to God. Yet I'm aware I cannot sing before I have seen. All worship is a response to a revelation--it's only as we breathe in more of the wonders of God that we can breathe out a fuller response to Him....the key to a life of passionate and powerful worship comes from seeing God.

I love to say that not only is the throne room of God a place of reverence, it's always a place of refuge. So when everything else in life seems to be shifting, or breaking and shaking apart, there's a place that is always stable, safe, and constant. When we draw near to God in worship, and approach His throne, we tap into that. It's a very re-assuring place, where we're reminded that there's a God on His throne, and even when we don't understand everything, we can trust it to Him.

And on that day when my strength is failing; the end draws near and my time has come. Still my soul will sing Your praise unending ten thousand years and then forevermore

As we begin to face up to the holiness of God, our lives resound with that very same anthem, here and now upon the earth.