God Songs - Paul Baloche (Book)

 Review

When I first began reading this book, it occurred to me that I had a generally low opinion of the acumen of the Christian leaders to write a good book. That notion was thoroughly destroyed by the recent work of Paul Baloche and Jimmy & Carol Owens. God Songs, is a stellar new book that triumphs in teaching the church how to write its new music liturgy, as it is inspired by the Spirit of God. As I began to read God Songs, I found myself getting lost in the book. I began pulling out old songs I had written, and started eating up each concept, page after page. The density of information in the book is substantial. So much so, that I found myself needing significant breaks to digest the materials. I suppose if I wasn't a worship leader and songwriter myself, I could have just perused over the details of the book. But for those who are involved in local churches or worship ministry, and have creative giftings, especially in songwriting, you will find God Songs is the first real "epic" to be written precisely for the purpose of helping to craft today's new liturgy for the church.

Without giving a complete chapter listing, you will have to trust me that this book covers, in detail, literally every single topic related to worship songwriting. Everything is included in this book: launching a new song idea; developing a single theme; crafting excellent lyrics that "sing"; melodies, harmonies and rhythms that enhance the song; marrying music and lyrics; stimulating creativity in the writer; getting your songs heard; developing your worship ministry; selecting songs that minister; and even a final kick in the pants to just get going and "do it"! The only problem with me listing my main topics I gleaned from the book is that someone out there is going to think "oh, Kim didn't mention this important item about songwriting, so maybe the books is missing that". Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Suffice it to say that you will not find a more comprehensive treatment of exactly how to create, develop and perfect the essential components of a worship song: lyrics and music.

As a product, the volume is really better thought of as a textbook than a conversational "how I did it" peice from Paul or Jimmy & Carol. In fact, while there is quite a nice conversational tone to the writing, there is simply too much to digest for a serious reader to walk through this book in an afternoon or even a couple of days. If you are a songwriter or worship leader, you will want to start this book with your notebook or shoe box of song ideas close at hand. You will find that you may have a one or two day stops in any number of the chapters, as you engage in the craft of songwriting. And that is the way it should be. This is as much a lab manual as it is a theory textbook. So don't be ready to just read a book on songwriting- be ready to write those songs!

In my mind, this book should really have a place as the text of a college course (or maybe 2 or 3) on songwriting- there is just that much excellent, well-written material to work through. I would look to Christian colleges around the country to seriously consider using this as the core course content for a songwriting track in music ministry degrees- it is that comprehensive and well written. Because of that, I could find only one relatively minor critique in the book- the layout. At one point, I discovered no less than dozen different styles and fonts used as I read. Along with regular highlight blocks, inset text items and centered lyric quoting, I found the layout almost distracting to the depth of the information being presented. Frankly, because the fonts and style changes so constantly, it made reading through the book a little more difficult than I think it may have needed to be. But again, this would be perfect for a course or class room setting, where you tackle just one chapter at a time and you aren't trying to read the entire book in a few days.

One of my favorite things about the book was the very specific details they gave to why some techniques work and others don't. And while you may not have heard of "the ubiquitous 3rd", "the nuance of feel" or the "cardinal rule" in arranging and performance, you won't feel like your being talked down to as you learn these things. The authors leave a wide berth for their own personalities and understanding by prefacing all they are teaching with an acknowledgement that each technique will work different for different people and songs.

But the bottom line is that this book is simply fantastic in covering a topic that has had no significant treatment to date: writing the worship songs for today's church. If you are a writer, or worship leader, who has a desire to write songs out of God's heart you won't find a better text book anywhere than God Songs. Not only do I highly recommend this book, but we have given it our Editor's Choice Award to help show our approval and appreciation for the great contribution made by the authors! Anyone interested in songwriting will not be disappointed in this book!

Review by Kim Gentes