"One thing in your song should always be on fire."

I will be the first to argue that good church music can be old or new, classical or pop or folk or whatever, content dense or repetitive, celebratory or somber. And as I've pointed out before, the best critiques of praise-band music usually come from within that world, not from outside haters.

Anyway, this "How to write a worship song (in five minutes or less)" tutorial from Blimey Cow is a heap of fun:

I particularly like the ridiculous rock-guy singing and the suggestion that you toss in some "Amazing Grace" lyrics for "archaic flair." Also the part where the person projecting the words scrambles to catch up.

Of course, the stuff about "hallelujah" is a touch ironic for the liturgically oriented among us. Of all the things I don't like about this kind of church music, repeating the word "hallelujah" is not one of them—that particular trope's got some history. (And "no specific rules for its usage" is a funny line to hear this week, when the hardest-core liturgy people would probably be annoyed that I dared to mention the word in a blog post.)

Blimey Cow has also posted the full version of the song. Personally I'm not a fan of 21st-century guitar pop, worship-oriented or otherwise. But I have to hand it to them: that "woah oh oh" bit is pretty catchy.