I went to a show last week featuring 5 young songwriters. After the first round, I quit listening and started writing this blog post. Over the last 16 years as a professional songwriter I’ve played and attended countless writers’ rounds with Hall of Fame songwriters and new writers alike. Since I started teaching songwriting and […]
10 Ways to Slay Your Next Nashville Writers’ Round Read More »
I teach songwriting classes but this list isn’t meant to be instructional. There are a bunch of different reasons I came back to these songs over and over in 2020. Sometimes it was the resonance of the lyric with my personal narrative. Sometimes it was an infectious melody that woke me up in the middle
Songwriters, here are some prompts to get your creativity flowing in these days of social distancing. A stay-at-home order might be a gift, providing some extra time to think, process, and create. Here are four ways to focus your songwriting in this season. (My focus here is definitely on those of you who are writing
4 Ways to Focus Your Songwriting Right Now Read More »
Throughout my career, I’ve worked with a variety of educational institutions, churches, record companies, and touring artists. All four of those worlds are being shaken by the current crisis our world is facing. I’ve spent the last few weeks researching different ways organizations respond in crisis and I have discovered a few key leadership suggestions
From Disruption to Innovation Read More »
I’m grateful to have some wise and caring friends checking in on me these days. REMEMBER, your single, extroverted friends who live alone view these stay-at-home directives as a prison sentence. Don’t ASK what they need. They’ll just say “I’m fine!” YOU’RE what they need. Schedule a FaceTime hang, work out together, swap your favorite
Don’t Forget Your Single Friends Read More »
For her entire existence, the church has battled against a spectator mentality among congregants. Now that churches across the globe have been forced to fit their worship gatherings into a live-streamed computer screen, what once was a challenge is quickly becoming a crisis. If worship was ever in danger of becoming a show, that danger
7 Ways to Overcome Your Church’s Spectator Crisis Read More »
Writing Songs for the church is a unique and even dangerous task. I can help you navigate that process. I’ve made an introductory lesson from the Kingdom Songs University course “Kingdom Songcraft” available for free at kingdomsongsuniversity.com. The full 10 lesson course is $199 and includes a companion e-book full of helpful songwriting prompts. The
5 Core Essentials for Writing Worship Songs Read More »
BORDER CRISIS The state of Texas is at the frontline of America’s recent obsession with border security. Some call it a crisis. Others call our response to the situation the crisis. From where I sit at Barbarossa Coffee about 365 miles from nearest border crossing, the idea of crossing international borders still seems abstract. Most
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace – chapter two Read More »
Over the last 47 years I’ve seen some glorious things, walked in some heavenly places. There are a bunch of lists of “WONDERS OF THE WORLD” and I’ve witnessed many of them. They each deserve their own page of wondrous description. I’ve seen Kilimanjaro peeking above the clouds from Kenya and seen Mount Ranier peeking
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace – chapter one Read More »
Over the last 5 years, I’ve frequently used a practice of “sacred singing” that I’ve called Cantatio Divina with various groups of worship-focussed songwriters. Below is an explanation of the idea, its historical and biblical foundations and some tips for leading this practice in your own context. “Do we read the Bible for information about
