[Amanda Cook] I feel like a lot of the songs
that we end up writing actually come out of the
last song that someone else wrote. Someone
else’s song will grab hold of me, like “Great Are
You, Lord”. It’s an anthem for my whole life, and
I can’t get away from it – and I don’t want to!
That song is a springboard to hundreds of other
songs and moments. I get immersed in the spirit
of it, and it’s like an infinite field of possibility that
I can launch into when I’m connected so deeply
into a certain sound.
[WM] Sometimes a producer creates a
defining album for an artist, and everything after
that is defined by that record. Are you saying
that, in some ways, an individual song takes
you someplace as a worship leader and artist
that you wouldn’t have been able to go without
that vehicle?
[Amanda] Totally! Yes, it definitely does,
but I think we need to be careful about just
writing what works, or copying the last thing
that went really well. We can get stuck and
Kalley Heiligenthal
build a monument there, and then miss out on
the moment we’re in right now. I think of all of
for it. Sometimes you bring it back into that of perfume for Jesus, those are the worship these movements, songwriters, and leaders all
same spontaneous moment and see if maybe songs that cost the writer something to bring around the world who I look up to and respect
another part of the song could be birthed out forth. Only the Lord will ever know that, but in – they have given me language for certain areas
of it. A lot of it comes from the writing style, a corporate setting we feel the weight of that of my heart that I wouldn’t have found language
but you also never want to create in a vacuum. cost, even if we don’t necessarily know what for if they had not done the work of excavating
What we’re trying to do is to partner and pair the story behind it was. it, paying attention to their season, and being
a corporate expression with what God’s doing.
[Steffany Gretzinger] Hopefully our songs
get deeper and deeper, and more worshipful
as we grow with God. That process of going
deeper will look and sound a hundred different
ways – there’s no formula for it. Over the course
of our walks with God, I think we could all go
back to songs that have been forgettable.
Without judging the heart behind them, they
seem to have been written with the intent of
seeing how many people could sing them.
Something happens when someone has
engaged in worship and broken their heart
open before the Lord writes and develops
a song from that place. When people crack
Steffany Gretzinger
themselves open like Mary broke open the jar
10
June 2018
WorshipMusician.com