LOOP COMMUNITY
ADVICE FOR EVERY WORSHIP LEADER WITH CHRIS BROWN FROM ELEVATION WORSHIP | Matt McCoy
TIPS FOR SONGWRITERS [ Matt ] What advice would you give a worship songwriter who wants their songs to be heard ?
Chris Brown has been leading worship at Elevation Church and with Elevation Worship for 15 years . Loop Community Founder Matt McCoy sat down with him to talk about his journey and advice he has for worship leaders .
GROWING AS A WORSHIP LEADER [ Matt ] How have you grown over the years and how have you seen the worship ministry change ?
[ Chris ] Hopefully I ’ ve stayed adaptable and willing to change over the years . The landscape has changed so much with what worship music is , even over the last few years , but definitely since 2006 when I started leading . We as a ministry have aimed to stay authentic season over season to who we are , based on who we have in our ministry and who is around us . I have learned to balance being influenced by the people of our church , but while understanding that we ’ re in a very privileged position to also influence what our people view worship is and what a worship song is . That ’ s something that I have tried to not carry lightly . The position of influence that God continues to give us . Hopefully I ’ ve grown in how important something like that is to steward .
GROWING AS A SONGWRITER [ Matt ] Is it challenging now going into songwriting sessions knowing that everyone is going to expect the next The Blessing or Jireh ? What tips do you have for songwriters ?
[ Chris ] It ’ s definitely in the back of my mind . I think it would be hard for any creative writer to pretend like that isn ’ t there . Pastor Steven [ Furtick ] talks about this all the time that we can ’ t chase what that was . That existed , lived and was created in a moment , so why bother chasing it . The Blessing didn ’ t come out because we were chasing another song before that . We weren ’ t trying to recreate a sound . Jireh wasn ’ t because we were after something . The day we wrote that we had never written with Chandler [ Moore ] or Naomi [ Raine ]. We went to a house and wrote in the basement for eight hours , and at the end we had a lot of music and lyrics that had kept flowing . We realized we had to put it together … ‘ which movement should be the Bridge ?’ We ’ d never written that way , in an unstructured fashion . The pressure can exist , but any song that we love and God has given influence ( I ’ m standing on enough history of songs being written like that ) they came from a pure place and we weren ’ t chasing something else .
[ Chris ] Don ’ t equate success to visibility . You should decide early on that your motive for writing songs can ’ t be for other people to hear them . Your drive can ’ t be to get your songs out . The motive has to be that you feel on mission and called to do that . That doesn ’ t need to take the drive or passion away to work strategically to get your songs out , but don ’ t let your driving motivation be for others to hear them . We stay committed to writing songs because we have vision from Pastor Steven to write for our church . Not vision to have songs that are widely heard or get awards . We write them because we were called to do it . I don ’ t want to deflect an answer , but the motivation is everything . StayingL focused and committed on what we really feel called to do and steward it the best we can in that season . Don ’ t get ahead of yourself or compare yourself to other songs or ministries . I can ’ t wait to hear over the next decade the songs that keep coming from churches . The church needs to continue to bring pure songs .