song that you put in me ?
I don ’ t know . We look for , as a songwriter , as a creative , the tendency is to think that there are puzzle pieces , treasures you have to go find and discover outside of yourself … if you could just learn to do this . If you could just wrap your head around this , we ’ re looking for something external and God ’ s saying ” I just want you to let out of you what I put in you . And that brings me the honor that I don ’ t get from the angels ” ( because they sing the same dang song all day ). ( laughing ). But the idea that I can sing my song , the thing that he put in me , just like a puzzle piece in my own life , figure out who I am . Who did you make me to be ? What does my heartbeat for ? And my songs have changed . They ’ ve become more fun , less serious . I ’ m a fun guy , I want to write happy songs .
[ Leeland ] There ’ s a quote from Clement of Rome and he was discipled by Paul and he took over the Roman church when Paul went to be with the Lord and Clement wrote letters too , and one of his letters , he dedicated his whole life to the study of the incarnation - God becoming a man . That was his specific thing where he wrote about that was like , what does this mean for us human beings that God became one of us and he was fully God , but also fully man ? And he wrote one of his letters . He said ,” I pray the grace of God would open up your eyes to see that through the incarnation , God becoming a man , God through Christ was from the time he was born to the time he breathed his last breath on the cross … was sanctifying and redeeming all human endeavor as worship except sin ”.
So , because God , the man , the Son of Man lived a human life , all of humanity now , all of our endeavors are now made worship and made holy except sin . So when we think about things like falling in love with someone or your friendships in your life or eating a meal with somebody or waking up in the morning and getting your clothes on to go to work . I mean everything is now made holy because God the son did them - except sin - and we know what sin is . So to me it is that simple .
[ Frank ] In your songwriting are you thinking , “ I know this means a lot to me , but does it mean it is going to relate to your audience … to the market ?”
[ Chris ] Well , it depends on why you ’ re writing songs . I mean , I write songs for my kids that are dumb about how I like to eat worms and how dirt is good for you . And I ’ ll make those songs up and when I make those songs up , they ’ re just as fun to write . But there ’ s no pressure because nobody has to sing along .
Now , when I write for church , I ’ m in a different mindset . I ’ m thinking I ’ m a worship pastor every Sunday . What does my church need to sing ? What does God want to hear ? So I mean , you can write a song about anything . There ’ s no rules about creativity … songwriting . But when you think of , well , I ’ m going to use this song , I ’ m going to use this , it ’ s a tool . It ’ s like we ’ re building . We want to move the church right now I really have been writing a lot of happy songs . I feel the church is so sad . They ’ ve just been in a sad place and for good reason , but the joy of the Lord is our strength .
So I find myself going , I want to write happy
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