This song will be different every time and may not always include all the verses above. It is designed to incorporate suggestions from those gathered.
Here are a few ideas that show how you could take the song in different directions:
Let your kingdom come.
Father, hear our prayer.
How I love you, Lord.
Comfort those who mourn.
"A Time For Everything" was written in 2024 during the Resound Worship 12 Song Challenge Month where we were encouraged to write "a song for someone" - A song which someone in my church congregation could sing with real relevance, but where it could also be sung by everyone.
At the time, we has a family whose teenage daughter was suffering from unexplained seizures and swelling on the brain. She was in the intensive care ward of the specialist hospital, with the doctors a bit baffled by the cause and the necessary treatments. Her parents testified about how they were hanging on to faith through the circumstances, despite there not being a clear end in sight.
This song was written for them to sing. Thankfully she's on the mend now and back at school, after great medical care and a bit of a miraculous recovery.
It's my hope that this is a song you can sing, either because you're going through troubled times, or because you're standing alongside someone who is.
A song about how God talks to us. If you are envious of people who relate stories of how God has spoken to them, join the club. That type of thing can be both encouraging and discouraging prompting us to think “why doesn’t God talk to me like that?” Perhaps God does and we just don’t recognise the voice.
Perhaps we are expecting thunderclaps and flashing light bulbs? Hmm …... I know God speaks to me but I often don’t realise it until some time afterwards when I have an “Oh, yeah” moment and often I don’t realise it at all.
The reality is that the Holy Spirit is whispering to us all the time “help that person, share your bread, your friend needs a hug etc etc”. And “shock, horror” the Spirit whispers to everyone, not just Christians. But the biggest revelation to me was that God speaks to us all the time through every part of his creation.
Listen to your own heartbeat and there is a whisper of God. “Every breath we take, every single heartbeat, every smile in the street” is a whisper of God’s voice. Wow!!!!!
This song started with a challenge: 'write a song about rest'. I was just reading Psalm 34 that week: Taste. See. Pondering on what that might mean, I realised that to really taste or see, I needed to pause, to rest, so I could focus on what my senses noticed. I decided to write about this Psalm and working on it, I found out it ministered to me. The song kept coming back when facing a small surgery I was really afraid of. I listened to the song over and over again and also sang it to others. It is the opening song of my first album as I hope my songs will help others to taste and see that the Lord is good.
The resurrection in simple language based on the account of John's gospel - an all-age worship song for churches. Vocals by Sue Crossman of Hopestream Worship.
Reading the story of the Prodigal Son, I was struck by how the father hugged his son and gave him a coat, a robe. He restored his status, clothed him. Suddenly I was reminded of the soldiers who took away the robe of Jesus, God’s Son, when He was crucified. They cast lots to decide whose it would be. Jesus laid down His robe, His authority, His dignity, His status, for me to be clothed with garments of salvation and wrapped in a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). I was so amazed that I wrote this song.
This was written at a United Adoration creative day in Durham at the beginning of 2024. The wonderful Elise Massa, who ran the day, chose Isaiah 55 as her theme scripture. She also helped me hone the lyrics. It's basically about us being so attractive that God's glory shines through us to attract others to God. It is therefore a challenge as well as a promise.