THE
POWER
OF A
SONG
AND THE
SONGWRITERS
THAT
WRITE
THEM
By Steven Curtis Chapman
The first concert I ever attended was Andraé Crouch and The Disciples. I won tickets to the show on a radio contest and it was such a thrill to see Andraé and his great band and hear the inspiring songs he’d written like “Jesus Is the Answer” and “My Tribute (To God Be the Glory).” Another song that had a profound impact on my life is “Rise Again,” by Dallas Holm. When I was 10 years old, my family and I attended a David Wilkerson Crusade in Mayfield, Kentucky, and heard Dallas sing his newly written song. The words and music really moved me and planted a seed in my heart. Years later when I began writing songs, Dallas became a major influence in my early development as a songwriter.
Songs have a mysterious way of weaving their way into your heart and soul. A song like Rich Mullins’ “Awesome God,” gives me a deeper understanding and insight into who God is. I remember buying a Rich Mullins CD one time and I didn’t have a CD player with me so I just read through the lyrics. I was so moved by the power of the poetry he wrote.
One of the profound gifts Christian music has beyond any other musical genre is that it combines the power of the emotional impact of a song with being able to take the truth of the Scripture to an even deeper place in ourhearts. I began writing songs because I discovered that the greatest way to hide something deep in my heart was to attach music to it. How many times have we found ourselves singing along to a song on the radio we didn’t even know we knew? A song we haven’t heard in 20 years comes over the airwaves and we’re singing along with some oldies song because it was hidden in our heart. What’s so amazing about Christian music is you can do that with the truth of Scripture and find it engrained in your heart. I think of Amy Grant’s song, “Thy Word,” with the lyrics directly from the Bible, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” That song got a lot of people singing Scripture
The first song I ever wrote was called “Well Done” and it was inspired by the story in the Bible where the master left various talents with his servants and he came back later to see how they had used or invested the talents they had been given. If they used their talents wisely he said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” That really impressed me as a teenager thinking that God had given me certain talents of music and I wanted to be able to use those in a way that God would be able to say, “Well done.” I think at the core of all Christian songwriters is a realization that God has entrusted us with a gift and the best we can hope for is to use that gift in a way that when the Master returns, He can say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, you’ve invested your gift and your talent wisely to My glory. You didn’t hide it or squander it or bury it. You used it to My glory and not your own.” When we write a song we realize it is really so much bigger than we are. It really is God inviting us into the creative process, so we become a co-creator with Him and that is really a humbling experience. An endless source of inspiration for me is my wife Mary Beth and our six children. My faith and family are intertwined in my music as we learn to live out God’s grace here on earth.
Sometimes songs that are born out of deep sorrow and pain can bring healing and renewal. “I Will Be Here” is a song I wrote about my love and commitment to Mary Beth following the divorce of my parents.
And now it is a song that has been sung at thousands of weddings.
Not long ago, Mary Beth and I were standing in line at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, where all adoptive families have to file through to appear and swearthat all the information they have submitted about their child is true. Then they give you a Visa to bring your child home. We were standing in line with our new daughter, Maria, and a whole adoptive group came in and stood behind us. A husband and wife holding a little Chinese girl came over to us and said, “We’re in line today holding this little baby girl because we came to your concert three years ago and you sang ‘When Love Takes You In.’ Now here westand in China on the other side of the world with this little girl and we thank you for that.” I just thought, Wow, now that’s pretty amazing. Here we are on the other side of the world and that family is here because of the power of what that song communicated to them and how God used it in their lives.
Probably the most encouraging, complimentary thing that I’ve heard people say over the years is that my songs have given them the words when they didn’t know what to say, or how to pray, or they didn’t know how to express how they were feeling. So we songwriters help give a voice to the spirits of those who hear our songs. That’s an awesome gift that God has given us.
My prayer for you is that you will be drawn closer to our wonderful Savior as you read the story behind these songs.
