Performance Songs: These songs are really my own private heart expressions to the Lord. I call them “performance songs” because they are not really songs that a congregation can sing along to but they might be a blessing to individuals or if sung over a congregation at an appropriate time. Like most songs, there will be a story to each one of them, a moment and set of circumstances in which they were written. Sometimes when I ponder a particular song, I can remember what I was feeling and going through when I wrote it. More often than not, though, I can’t. I read the lyrics and think “whatever I was going through then, I am through the other side and still here all these years later. Jesus, thank You. You have been so good to me!”
Worship Songs: These are written for congregational singing. They don’t all work well that way, often because I haven’t been able to find the right tune to go with the lyrics. Many of these songs were written out of a time of personal reflection and revelation in the Bible, often as I’m preparing a sermon. When I first started out as a preacher, I often wrote and then sang one of these songs at the end of the sermons to highlight the meaning of the message. JS Bach and church composers like him, did the same thing, although to a much higher and more lasting level. He took the scriptures for a particular Sunday service (which in Lutheran churches at the time were prescribed) and composed music for them. Then he rehearsed it with his choir and musicians and sang it at the Sunday service to underscore the message of the sermon. He did it every Sunday for years and we have an incredible wealth of beautiful and timeless worship music as a result. I still believe there is a place for that thinking, probably not for every Sunday, but possibly a theme song for a sermon series. A song written in-house, which carries the genes of the church family it was written in alongside the eternal truths of scripture. Because I am more committed to the lyrics I have written than the tunes and chords I have given them, I am more than happy for others to compose their own music to accompany these words. So feel free to download the songs and either use them with the tunes I have written, or else write your own music, perhaps more in keeping with your generation and culture.