The Harp and the Bowl

The second way I like to look at the worship diet is in regard to song focus.  Does the song principally talk about God and his nature and works, about me and my response to him (or about the world around us)?

To some extent I think the pendulum of our modern worship diet has swung a little too far toward focusing on us. This is perhaps in over-response to the nature of most pre-modern worship and hymns that were almost exclusively focused on God, with little mention of our response.  Don't get me wrong, some of the most powerful encounters I've had with the Lord have been when I was able to genuinely pour my heart out to God in response to the revelation of who he is. Our response in worship is critical to making connection with the Lord.

But as with song category, what's needed is balance.  If the songs in our worship diet are too much about me and do not adequately extol the virtues and wonders of our God, then worship becomes anemic and too dependent upon my emotional response.  There is just too little revelations and truth there to respond to. Alternatively, if we sing mostly about God without an adequate amount of response on our part (surrender, love, adoration, bowing humbly, etc.) then worship can devolve rather quickly into nothing more than singing songs, which isn't worship at all. 

As a songwriter I try to write songs that cover both focuses, sometimes even in the same song.  I once even set out to purposefully write an entire song that did not have a single use of the word I or me.  It is much harder than you'd imagine!

What do you think?  Has modern worship gone too far such that we now focus too much on us?