I Am Waiting Here For You...

It's gotten very late, but I really want to write about tonight. After all, I've been waiting for months to attend my first...

NSAI Christian Workshop!

NSAI does a weekly meeting on Thursdays, but the first Tuesday of each month is the Christian writers workshop. I wanted to attend this summer when I was here for Stamps-Baxter, but it was cancelled. Then, I thought I'd get to attend in December when we were here, but again, cancelled! So, tonight was the night.

I really didn't know what to bring. My new favourite song is "Abide With Me", but it didn't seem right to get critiqued on a lyric that's mostly not mine. So, I chose an older song, "I am Waiting Here for You". I've had it critiqued before, but I really wanted another opinion. I think the song is really close to being ready, but I just didn't know how to tweak it into that final state.

The whole meeting was awesome! There weren't a lot of people (compared to the regular nights) and they only listened to half the song, so there was lots of time for feedback. The critiquers also gave lots of great thoughts on writing worship songs, becoming "armchair theologians", and how writing Christian music is a different responsibility than writing other kinds of music. All the feedback was honest, but very encouraging.

The feedback on my song was very positive. They especially liked the concept and the music. They had a few suggestions for tweaking the lyric, so I'll probably revisit a few lines. Overall, I was really happy with the experience.

After the meeting, another songwriter came over to tell me how much he liked my song. We got to talking. He leads music at his church, and today, he visited 4 of his parishioners who are terminally ill. He said he wished he'd had my song to play for those people. So I gave him a copy of it. I just hope it brings them some peace at this time. I have such a special place in my heart for those dealing with death and grief. It honoured me that he'd want to bring my music into that environment.

I'm so inspired to write after tonight! There were so many good songs... I want to have new songs to share each month!