It's All About You, Jesus

I have a new favorite worship song. You know it; it's called "The Heart of Worship" by Matt Redman. I'm going to tell you about my experience with this song thus far and why I have rather suddenly decided that it is basically pure gold.

This song is nearly as old as I am, and I can remember singing it growing up in church for as long as I can remember. So, naturally, for very much of my life it has been a song that I've known very well, yet I never pay any attention to the words. This trend is tragic, but it happens all the time, even to people like me who really play a ton of worship music. Something psychologically within us allows us to sing songs without listening to the words. I often say that I hope one symptom of my worship ministry will be to encourage people to really listen and really sing the words. Unfortunately this is a rather difficult task, one that there's no clear-cut way of achieving. One possibility, I hope, is to write a blog post on the subject.

It was just tonight that the song took on new life for me. As I was singing whatever songs came to me, this one came to my mind. I realized, after singing the chorus once or twice, that I had actually misunderstood what exactly the chorus was saying the whole time. I'll briefly talk about that here: basically, the "it" in "it's all about You" does not refer to the "heart" of worship, but "worship." So, despite its place of honor in the title of the song, the song isn't so much about this ethereal "heart" of worship as it is about worship itself.

I guess I had always been annoyed by that first phrase, I'm coming back to the heart of worship. It sounds like Christian-ese with little actual meaning. And that would be the case, except that (given the distinction I made above) the next line defines this odd term: It's all about You all about You Jesus. What is coming back to the heart of worship? Coming back to having worship be all about Jesus. Tragically, this is not always the case. It may not even be the case a majority of the time. I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it is something I have confessed to God on many occasions. Turning "worship" into a performance or popularity grab is so easy and so common. This pitfall is difficult to avoid, but I'll suggest one solution: sing this song and mean it! I found myself this evening unable to stop confessing and realigning, getting more and more excited I get to say that It's all about You all about You Jesus.

Of courses, the verses and prechorus to the song are great too, but I'm not going to go through them line by line. To reexamine the song cuts deep as I realize how often I've only brought "a song in itself," and not myself in worship.

I would love to urge you, in any way I can, to develop a practice of really listening to the songs you sing in worship. It is so easy to just sing words! I do it all the time, I'm trying to develop this discipline right along with you. I want every word I sing in worship songs to be something I am actually personally praying and meaning. I have no problem confessing that this is not the case at all times, but I foresee a future where it happens more frequently.

I don't see it or act like it all the time, but it's all about Jesus.