This post has been on my mind for quite some time now. Most Sundays (regardless of the church I attend) are reminders of the poor quality of worship-song writing in our mainstream-evangelical culture. I frequently find myself distracted during worship, unable to sing a chorus again or compelled to skip portions of verses I dislike. Such distractions take my mind of God. I confess I’ve done more than my share of griping and complaining about praise songs. Although griping is enjoyable; I doubt it is beneficial for others or my own spirit. To make matters worse, I frequently wrestle with whether I or the song writer is to blame for my poor attitude during worship. “Maybe if I were just more aligned with the Holy Spirit, I would be able to worship authentically to this song too,” I sometimes think. And anyway, should Christians even be critical of other believers’ attempts to write and sing to God? This is at least an area on which to tread lightly – such criticism may not be mine to make. Because of these cautions, this topic has sat on the blog side-burner for quite some time.

Yet the same songs, choruses, and phrases that bothered me years ago still grate against me today. This post is an attempt to constructively lay out pitfalls in worship-song writing and leading that cause me to be distracted during worship. It is not meant to disparage any particular song or song writer. Perhaps if we, as Christians, are more reflective about what our worship should be, and what songs are beneficial and supportive of authentic, true worship, we might write just such songs. So the following is a list of seven factors I’ve noticed in common praise songs that detract from the worship experience for me.  The list is arranged from the least-bad to worst offense.

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