You might recognize these lyrics from the original song, “Wait,” that Once Prodigals, the worship team at Logos, introduced several weeks ago. We collaborated as a team to write this song, making sure that we anchored ourselves in 1 Thessalonians, the book of Scripture that we are returning to this weekend.

As Paul encouraged the Thessalonian church to look to Christ, Pastor Serge constantly reminds our team that every word we sing on Sunday should point us to Christ, cause us to reset our hearts on things above, and allow us to preach the gospel to ourselves through rhyme and repetition. As we join others in song, we declare his steadfast love, we stand in his unshakable kingdom, and we rest in his compassionate grace.

“O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things!”—Psalm 98:1

During the past year, I have had the privilege of songwriting with several others from the band. While the process of songwriting was new to me, I have learned so much from engaging with the talented, creative people that I share the stage with on Sunday mornings. Here are a couple of those lessons, which I believe apply to any and everyone who is striving after holiness by the grace of God:

• We must be personally immersing ourselves in truth. When we wrote the song Wait, we meditated on the book of 1 Thessalonians, knowing that as a church we were approaching a sermon series based on Paul’s letter. As we root ourselves in scripture, we can create songs that are biblically faithful and theologically sound. Songwriting is not something that we take lightly. Since God has wired us to cling to song, melody, rhyme, and rhythm, we know that the lyrics of songs may be remembered long after the key points of a sermon have faded from our memory.
• Collaboration helps creativity flourish. While songwriting, there have been countless times when the right word has escaped me, only to have another team member fill the gap and suggest just the right thing. The process takes time, and feedback from the entire team means that the finished product will be much more beautiful. I have learned that I need to be vulnerable and willing to let the song change. After many rounds of praying, scribbling, singing, erasing, reading, and jotting together, our hope is that we will have crafted songs that allow people to savor Jesus’s goodness.