Jun 23, 2008
Punctuate your PowerPoint! Ambiguity in this weekend's church service.
Like this post?
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender.
Does the missing period go after follow or in?
* * * * *
© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Put the period after ‘in’.
I agree with jefflo. Although that does mean ending with a preposition…
It goes after “Everything.”
semi-colon after “in”
Embrace the ambiguity and benefit twice.
Perhaps, KP, but not all ambiguity is created equal.
I give my life…
To follow everything.
I believe!
In now, I surrender.
That brings tears to my eyes.
not all ambiguity is created equal
That’s surely true.
Here, though, the meanings are faithful and complementary, right? You get two angles and emphases for the price of one as you sing, and your meditation after the song has been longer and richer.
So much depends on the context before and after, and I don’t know this song, so…
Maybe I’m off, off, off,
Karsten
I suppose you’re right, but the almost certain accidentalness of it nags at me.
It’s hard to be moved by something that was more likely brought about by negligence than skill.
Abraham-
I wonder if the blame is misplaced–from what I can find, the actual lyrics are as you posted (no punctuation). I guess that brings up a good question: should preparers/leaders of worship “fix” things like this? I have seen churches make changes to words to better fit their theology, rather than opting to not do the song at all.
This post made me laugh.
On Sunday morning, I was having the same debate in my mind.
…so, in this case, we’d look to the lyricist to be more clear.
Interesting, Tony. I haven’t thought of this before.
In most music, the written text is virtually irrelevant, because people listen to songs, they don’t read them.
But with corporate worship music, there is as much reading as there is singing going on.
So does a worship-songwriter need to pay more attention to the appearance of the text than a normal songwriter?
Touche, Abraham, I understand.
For years, the overhead at our church had the “In Christ Alone” lyric “When fears are stilled, when strifings cease.” Stuck in my craw, too.
Then when we went to Powerpoints not long ago, and it was corrected to strivings, I missed that ridiculous, accidental strafe/strife/strive portmanteau. Or that mishearing of the Aussie singer’s accent on the radio. Or that plain old misspelling or typo.
Didn’t matter what it was. Strifings is happily part of my spiritual vocab now.
Karsten
This reminds me of another Hillsong lyric
I remember one worship service where the leader neglected to sing the ‘in’. Made for a very interesting time of corporate worship, to say the least…
At our church we sang for a couple of years, “Blessed be your name, when I’m found in the dessert place.” Made me chuckle every time!
Being a big believer and lover of punctuation I’m strongly convinced that it is the responsibility of the worship-songwriter to give more attention to the text.
Imagine if Charles Wesley hadn’t punctuated ‘And can it be?’
“Blessed be your name when I’m found at the Dairy Queen.”
“Though my head hurts with ice cream freeze, blessed be your name.”
I have wondered about this one often and make an effort to sing it the other way.
I think the writer of the song meant it to be:
I give my life to follow everything I believe in,
Now I surrender all- assuming that everything you believe in is right. I am not at the point yet were I want to follow EVERYTHING I believe because I still have some warped ideas as a work in progress. So is sing it:
I give me life to follow.
Everything I believe in- now I surrender.
But that’s a bit awkward.
Good post!
funny, we sang this song Sunday in Phx. I was thinking that I should give my life to follow everything that HE believes in…
With everyone talking about what they were thinking about during worship songs, I wonder if this comment thread is a bit discouraging to worship leaders…
I hope they don’t get too discouraged. We may be loud and annoying, but we’re still an insignificant minority.
Its good though, it means we actually think about what we sing and want to mean what we sing.
EVERYONE on our worship team will attest to the fact that I am the self-appointed overhead typo-checker. I confess. It drives me nuts. I confess that, too.
But as some of you alluded to, lyrics rarely, if ever, include punctuation, or correct punctuation. Yet – even though it’s true that these are listened to and even though a song is akin to poetry, just put to background music – it is socially acceptable for some reason. I don’t know why.
This also drives me nuts.
There is no reason not to punctuate your lyrics. Songwriters, unite! :P
Oh, I like the semicolon idea.
Which reminds me of:
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/quotes/honoring-the-semicolon.php
Surely it’s about surrendering everything we believe in (as ripplegirl said) – what kind of commitment would it be to follow everything we believe in (J S Bach, Macbooks etc.)
Reminds me of the service I heard about where they just sang the chorus “…be to our God for ever and ever” over and over again… Be what?