The worship team at Quarry Ridge knows about this, and they deal with it the best they can. Most of them simply wink and nod and put up with me and my idiosyncrasies.

But this is important! The words on the screen or on a song sheet used for worship MUST be grammatically correct!

Having our lyrics up there without punctuation and phrasing is virtually the same as trying to worship in a foreign language. We might be able to follow along and sing a few words, but we’ll have little sense of what is being said or sung. How can people truly learn to worship – how can they truly worship - if the words make little or no sense?

Check out the following to see how punctuation makes all the difference:

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours, Gloria

You see, for me, this is not about some pet peeve regarding words. It has EVERYTHING to do with what people see then sing then feel and consequently assimilate into their hearts during worship. The cadences and phrasing of the music doesn’t always lend itself to telling the people what they are saying and should be taking in. If they get it wrong – what have we taught them? Perhaps error?

Songwriters write questions without a question mark at the end of the sentence. They write long, run-on sentences that make no sense whatsoever except to them, or except after a lengthy study of the lyrics. Nearly every songwriters (or, perhaps producers) start every phrase with a capital letter which makes our lyrics seem like disjointed sentence fragments. The result is that if the people don’t know what they’re saying – they can’t or won’t say it with any conviction. If a person doesn’t know the song – they read the lyrics along with us; if the lyrics make no sense, they don’t get anything out of worship – and worse – they offer nothing to God.

Let me introduce you to a new song. See what you think of it.

Holy, holy are you lord
The whole earth
Is filled
With your glory
Let the nations rise
To give honour and praise
To your name
Let your face
Shine on us
And the world
Will know you live

All the heavens
Shout your praise
Beautiful is
Our God
The universe
Will sing
Hallelujah to you
Our King
Hallelujah to you
Our king
Hallelujah to you
Our king

Like it? Really? Does it even begin to make sense? How long would you have to look at it to know what it says? These phrases might match the phrasing of the music; but there’s nothing here that suggests a real coherent thought that someone new can easily pick up.

There’s a British spelling of “honour” which doesn’t belong on an American screen; there’s no capitalization of the important words like “Lord” and “King” and the personal pronouns that refer to God like “You” and “Your.” However, the beginning of every line IS capitalized making it look like a song of 20+ little sentence fragments.

The above is how it comes to us from the Internet or a lead sheet. The following is what I suggest we need in corporate worship:

Holy, holy are You Lord,
the whole earth
is filled with Your Glory.

Hallelujah, to You our King!
Hallelujah, to You our King!

Isn’t that better? For me – it makes all the difference in the world.

I told you I was a little weird about this. But, helping people worship with their whole heart and mind is a big part of who I am. Having readable lyrics certainly helps!