Be prepared to write songs anytime, anywhere—even if you are looking after your squalling child. Okay, that’s a little unusual, but it happened to me! I think sometimes we believe that to write good songs and be effective in our creativity, we have to separate ourselves completely from the world and noise and distractions. Sometimes that’s a good and right thing to do. But sometimes it’s not necessary. I was recently working More

God’s people sing! They always have, and they always will. And what is it that makes us sing? What causes words to be lifted out of simple prose and speech and launched heavenward with melody? The sheer overflow of our hearts! Our songs spring from the intensity of emotion and conviction that cannot be contained. I can still remember clearly the day when Brenton Brown and I started singing this song. Actually Brenton had started it on his More

Why do the people of God sing? Think about that for a moment. Singing is one of the peculiarly wonderful marks of the people of God around the world and throughout history. Maybe in the modern age the question should be, “Why don’t we sing anymore?” For the most part, people of the world have moved from singing to listening to other people sing for them. Think about how many viewers watch shows like American Idol, which is all More

Document your inspiration when it comes, for it will not come again! I believe that a song starts as a seed—a clear single idea that contains the “songvision” of the song. It’s the “one thing” of your song. Make sure when the inspiration comes, when the seed falls into the soil of your life, you plant it! Write it down, record it, and take a mental picture of playing the melody on the piano. Invest in something More

From the moment I heard the beginning of this song floating through the air early on a September morning in London, England, I knew something special was happening. In the mid-1990s I had become somewhat disillusioned with worship music and the ministry connected with it. I grew tired of the striving, weary of artists jumping on the worship bandwagon just because worship music projects were selling more units. There was also my own shallowness as More