How to Write a Hymn 101 By Jerry A. Davidson

Writing hymns is an art that has often devolved into corporate worship songs. These corporate songs typically have catchy guitar licks and big Hallelujah choruses where the artist sings the highest note they can so the song feels and sounds so amazing and worshipful. This is a fine and often good practice. Just as an exhausting workout is needed for our bodies at times, they don’t do us any good if our body doesn’t have the nutrients and the figurative meat to build and recover from them. It is the same with those big corporate worship songs.

Go back and read some hymns written within the past 200 years or even the Psalms written by King David, who was an amazing songwriter! His songs made it into the Bible itself! Read through hymns like The Love of God written by Frederick Lehman in 1917. Verse 2 says,

“When hoary time shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall; when men who here refuse to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains call; God’s love, so sure, shall still endure all measureless and strong; redeeming grace to Adam’s race, the saints’ and angels’ song.”

Here, in a single verse, you have a beautiful example of the everlasting-ness of God’s love, a brief expose of its effect on all of history, and how it is the leading drive for God’s plan for redemption for us! It even shows the overpowering effect it has against all powers of the earth. This is not something you see in modern worship music enough. This hymn is full of meat and good spiritual nutrients, reminders of God’s nature, purpose, will, promises, and his omniscience over redemptive history. A modern-day example of a song this powerful would be Andrew Peterson’s “Is He Worthy?” This also deals with all of history, the immediate suffering of the world due to sin, as well as the hope of the only worthy Man who ever lived to open the scrolls revealed to us in Revelation to bring about the renewal of the earth.

We need songs and hymns that give spiritual meat to believers, new and old. We need hymns that give the Gospel, not just the feeling of the Gospel. So here are three basic ways to begin writing songs and hymns of your own.

1. Don't be a musician. Be a student of God's Word.

Write the truth of God’s word down, the effect it has on you, and/or actual words of Scripture. Some of the most classic hymns were simply poetic words that were written down by average believers who did nothing more than commit themselves to the study of God’s word. Then they took folk songs or simple tunes they came up with and placed and rearranged their words to fit it. Don’t think that just because you can’t sing, write songs, play instruments, or lead a band that you can’t write a song worthy of being sung to glory to God. It doesn’t hurt to be a musician or songwriter, but God never set spiritual qualifications for songwriters for His church. Feel at liberty to even put new words to a tune you know. You may just transform that tune to become known for God’s glory, which is the best thing any tune can do!

2. Glean from the Holy Spirit’s work in your personal life.

Have you ever heard the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul”? It was written in the 1800s by Horatio Spafford after he had received a message from his wife that his 4 daughters had died in a shipwreck on their way to Europe and that only his wife had survived. God used the most severe, Job-like devastation to bring a man to write one of the most powerful and influential hymns ever written (https://www.staugustine.com/article/20141016/ lifestyle/310169936).

Hopefully, you don’t experience something like Horatio did, but be open to simply writing down what God is doing in your life in rhyming form. At the very least, it will help YOU remember the grace and love of God in your life, whether in suffering or prosperity, and it may just help someone else do the same.

3. Don’t limit the topic. Don’t limit God. Don’t forget it’s all about God.

Many seem to practice a songwriting theology only of “I’m terrible. Help me, God.” Though this is a basic principle, that we are sinful and He is perfect, isn’t it odd that some of the most uplifting hymns have little to no mention of personal despair yet were written under the hardest, most heartbreaking circumstances?

Remember God’s covenant with Abraham. God fulfilled the entire covenant Himself and put Abraham to sleep. This showed that God was going to fulfill His side of the covenant no matter what. The truth in hymns that we need is simply that, The Truth. Focus on the facts of the nature and character of God, what He has done, what Christ has done, the effects of that work, and the perspective of how we as His children should respond, in awe, reverence, and worship.

Basically, flood your mind and heart, and that of those around you, with songs based in Scripture of God’s call, victory, and will in and for your life! That is a hymn worth hearing.

*There will be a sequel article to this about a more detailed and well-practiced approach to writing hymns and spiritual songs.

Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

~Psalm 96:1-3

Photos by Karen Ruhl

Jerry A. Davidson lives in Alexander, AR with his wife, Amy. He is a hymn writer and singer, as well as an author. He desires to write stories and songs that bring glory to God through a deep understanding of His Word and design for the world.