about songs for today
We are evangelical musicians who share a passion to write songs with thoroughly biblical content. We believe that singing together is a God-given vehicle that enables the Word of God to dwell richly in his people’s hearts.
“Let the word of God dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3 v16 (ESV)
Therefore we are seeking to produce songs of the highest quality, suitable for every style and age of today’s congregations.
Over the past few years, many Bible teaching churches have been asking for new congregational songs that take the emphasis off self and onto Christ. They have also noticed huge gaps in the subjects covered by contemporary Christian songwriting – God’s grace, judgement and transcendent majesty to name just 3.
We found that individual churches had been writing their own material to try and fill these gaps. So we formed a small group through which to cross-fertilize our material and make our songs singable by congregations other than our own.
We have waited a long time before creating this website because we want to be sure that we are producing songs that are both theologically and musically excellent.
We are praying, therefore, that “Songs for Today” will be a valuable resource for churches and church musicians who want the songs they use to be biblically-faithful and of the highest musical quality.
We want to serve you in a number of ways:
New music free to download
Our team of songwriters meet regularly to critique each others’ songs. If we feel a song meets our high standards (more about these below!) then we will publish it on this website. You can download it for free. And you can use it in your church as long as you have a CCLI licence.
We've also included an mp3 of the song, so you at least have an idea of how the song goes. These recordings are never ideal, because whichever style is recorded, not everyone will like it. We didn’t want to spend thousands on a professional studio recording – sometimes that can frighten people off. We want the songs to sound manageable by small forces, so we (the royal we) settled for voice and piano until we come up with something else.
New music links
At the same time, we don’t want to create the impression that we are the only ones writing Biblically faithful songs (or that we hold the key to defining what is good stylistically). We want to promote any song that we think would be useful for today’s congregation. If we become aware of new songs that others have published, which we consider to be worth a look, we’ll try our best to put in links to the websites where they’re available. This means that if it’s new and it’s good you’ll find it here, even if it’s not written by us!
How do we decide if a song is good or not?!
Our aims are to write songs that are:
- faithful to Scripture
- free of unnecessary jargon
- accompanied by a strong and easily-remembered melody
- suitable for any size of meeting
- suitable to be accompanied by any group of instruments, from solo piano/guitar to full band/orchestra
- able to stand the test of time
Some of us write words, some music, some both Some of us take older hymns and give them new tunes. One of us may write something which is not too bad, and another may take it away and improve it. Some of the songs are straight from the Bible, others use a biblical truth around which words are moulded. One or two have a particular gift for writing for children.
I sometimes dread the times that we meet, because we are (gently) ruthless with each other’s work. Some of our songs have absolutely dived – we’ve played them through, and then watched the tumbleweed trundle around the building with the death-knell bonging in the distance. Other times, we’ve written music which has variously sounded like Sting, Disney, James Last, Natasha Bedingfield and Scooby Doo. The great thing is that by meeting together and providing valuable direction and insights, we are getting better, and hopefully we prevent any of our songs going out without proper vetting.
All this goes towards encouraging you to pray for us, and for other musicians and lyricists who are at work trying to use our gifts to honour God in this area. We owe much gratitude to Chris Idle, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Keith Getty and many others who have been faithful in forging the way in the 21st century. We’re certainly far short of their standards, but we hope that this website will provide you with a valuable resource for encouraging the Word of God to dwell in the hearts of all believers.
Getting in touch with us
If you want to get in touch with us, please email admin@songsfortoday.com
You may want to give us feedback on songs published on our website.
You may want suggest song topics/themes that aren’t particularly well covered by current songs/hymns.
We’d also like to keep you updated as to when we post new songs on the website.
You may even want to send us a song that you’ve written. We will do our best to make the time to look at all songs sent in, but please bear with us if it takes a little time to reply!
Why aren’t there many songs on this website?!
Hang on, give us a chance – we’ve only just set it up!! We have worked on over 50 songs, and we could have put them all on this website, but we only want to give you the best completed ones so that we don’t waste your time. Less is definitely more in our view!
Developments and improvements in the pipeline
We're in the process of producing guitar charts for these songs as well as mp3 recordings in other formats (vocal and guitar, whole congregation).
Later, when we have a larger number of songs, the website is set up so that you'll be able to search for songs which fit particular themes and Bible verses as well as where they may be appropriate to use in a church meeting.
If there are any other ways in which make these songs easier to use, we'd love to know.