My only real concern is the first non-liturgical line. “Covered over by our sin” is kind of a sentence fragment, and thus isn’t as clear as it could be. I’m not sure what is covered. I’m assuming it means “we are covered by our sin” which, while kinda true, is also not. When the Bible speaks of sin, it is as stains more than “covering”. When it speaks of us being covered, it’s usually by the righteousness of Christ. So it might be a bit confusing. I think it would be a stronger song with a stronger first line. I also think it would be stronger if you outlined what Christ’s love is… His work on the cross… not just mention “love”. (I know, I know… Titus mentions mercy rather than love, but it doesn’t scan with the rest of the lyrics) And as always, I tend to look at all liturgical music as a way to teach the basics again. *chuckles*

And finally, I really LOVE the tune. I really like how you start it simple, then repeat it with more emphasis, then harmonization, and finally a much fuller musical expressiveness of our plea for mercy. Emotionally, it speaks to me this way more than the normal repetition, in the same emphasis each time, of the Kyrie.

I would definitely use this as part of personal devotion. I could see this as part of a youth worship service. I’m not sure it would fly as part of our main worship, although I think it’s worth a shot. I will mention it to our musical director, and see what he thinks.

I was raised Presbyterian, and because our doctrine came from a focus on God’s sovereignty, we had more “praise God” sorts of hymns than “Jesus saved us” hymns(or at least I remember more of them, so chances are we sang them more often). My Methodist hymnal is filled with hymns dealing with the Spirit, because that’s a focus of Methodist doctrine. And my Baptist hymnal focuses very much on our personal response to God, because that’s core to most Baptist teachines. As you say, it’s a matter of emphasis. Lutheran theology focuses primarily on Christ, and him crucified, and the right division of the Law and Gospel. So the majority of our hymns (and any other songs we sing in church) are likely to have that emphasis, too.

I do agree that we certainly don’t want to be legalistic about how many “Jesuses” there are mentioned in a song… but we do still need to be clear about who we’re talking about and what He’s done… whether our song is focusing on Christ’s work of redemption or the Spirit’s work of teaching/leading/comforting/encouraging, or something else. A congregational song needs to teach and encourage. If I’m going to be humming it until Wednesday, I want it to be a doctrinally clear and solid message. Not that we have to always explicitly outline God’s plan of salvation, of course! But when I look at songs to sing, or to suggest for our choir/congregation, I look very closely at what it teaches, both explicitly and implicitly.

If we want our congregations to go deeper in their faith- would we encourage them to only read verses of the Bible that mention Jesus? Yes, they add that “in name or concept” in there, and I suppose you could make an argument that the whole of scripture is about Jesus (in name or concept), but wouldn’t that render their question so broad as to be meaningless? In fact, we encourage the study of the scripture as a whole, including those sections that are not explicitly about Jesus (in name or concept), shouldn’t our music reflect the same?

The “Praise Song Cruncher” is a fun idea, but I think it would leave the book of Psalms rather thin.

You know what tomorrow brings -God knows the difficulties we will face, as well as his plans and will for our future kingdom work.
Every worry, every need, Lord
So refine and ready me -So, we pray that in his wisdom and foreknowledge he will equip and strengthen us…
To follow faithfully -To carry out his will with diligence and trust, whatever the task may be.

The song is very “me” centered. But, I think there is room for variety in our congregational worship, and believe that a personal prayer for spiritual growth is appropriate in a church service- as long as it is balanced with other material. Ultimately, spiritual growth is a personal thing, and encouraging the congregation to think and pray about it is important, whether it comes in the form of a sermon or a song.

But when I listen to something for choral or congregational singing, the rhythm and the words have to scan more smoothly. It’s not that you can’t add a little decoration here and there, but it has to be easy, natural decoration.

For instance… I’m a lyric soprano, and have a solid high range. But in our small choir, when we lost two of our three altos, I began singing alto because I can read music fairly well and I have a solid, strong voice. I have learned SO much about harmony and rhythm by singing alto. If you focus on the alto (or the tenor, for that matter) line in most of our hymns, they are the ones who add the decoration to the various verses. They have movement, or accidentals, or extra little rhythms, in and around the main soprano melody line.

But when you are writing unison work, you have to be able to build those interesting things into the main melody without distracting or compromising it. Some of the early Maranatha praise songs did that very well.

I also agree with you that the trend seems to be changing somewhat. I think the CCM writers are beginning to hear the critics who say we don’t want just cotton-candy, happy-clappy, Jesus is my boyfriend songs.

I think that it’s VERY important to encourage songwriters like yourself, who are interested in writing Biblical and doctrinally solid songs for congregational singing. It’s a hard calling… but then, God doesn’t call us where He doesn’t give us strength to go.