As I was preparing to write this article on local Christian worship songs, I was curious and decided to search for “Singapore Christian worship songs” on Google. The top four search results were as follows:

1. CCLI in Singapore: Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) … CCLI: Encouraging the spirit of worship … Covers almost 200,000 worship songs.

2. In-Deep Worship: Songs of worship from Singapore brought to you by Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC) Board of Worship & Music (The Methodist Church in Singapore), Integrity Music Asia, Beep Music Singapore and a group of like-minded, fired-up and eccentric worship pastors from several denominations.

3. CS Music  Christian Songwriters and Music Singapore: A community of Christian songwriters and musicians who seek to pour out the love of Christ to others through His gift of music. We aim to connect, unite, encourage, and equip songwriters for the edification of the body of Christ and to draw others to Him.

4. Our very own Methodist School of Music.

That put a smile on my face as Methodists came up twice in the top four! At the same time, I was humbled by God’s faithfulness and grace shown to us in blessing us with very gifted worship song writers, many of whom are the young people in our Methodist churches and schools.
From the very beginning, we have a rich heritage of worship songs. Charles Wesley, the brother of Methodism’s founder John Wesley, wrote more than 9,000 hymns and poems. I believe that the youth of today are blessed by God with that very same spirit that inspired Charles Wesley in his day, to write and compose worship songs that not only ministered to his generation but to the many generations after.

In the Bible, we are told to sing a new song to the Lord in several of the Psalms and in Isaiah 42:10. Have you tried writing a new song? How does one go about writing a new song? There is no inspiration like the inspired word of God and it is an endless well of ideas, encouragement, teaching and motivation for worship songwriters. Many great worship songs throughout the history of the church have been either written directly from or inspired by Scripture. Every generation needs to hear the voice of God through His Word and discover what it is He is saying.

Pray for God’s Spirit to speak and form those key ideas and thoughts into lyrics. I draw my inspiration from the book of Psalms as they were originally songs sung by writers like King David. Using music to convey the truths in the Bible is a great place to get ideas for the lyrics.

If you look at our most popular worship songs today, like “How Great is our God”, you will notice that they are based on God’s truths. “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” written by Charles Wesley is a beautiful illustration of this timeless truth. Although the song was written in the 18th Century, this song still ministers with great power and is loved and sung in many churches across all denominations today.

My prayer is that more youth will step forward with the boldness that comes from God, to share the God-inspired worship songs they have written. Who knows, another Charles Wesley may emerge amongst the youth, whose worship songs will be used by God to speak and breathe life into this new generation that longs to worship in spirit and in truth.

Reginald Chan is a full-time youth worker at Trinity Annual Conference Youth Ministries (Truthmin).