The 2025/26 season of 12 Song Challenge is drawing to a close. Every month since April I’ve been given a new challenge, along with 280 fellow writers, to bring a new song to life that is suitable for a church congregation.
It’s a discipline I have found tricky to balance with the ebb and flow of my regular work, but I have completed my third season with the challenge.
Behind it all is a podcast hosted by Sam and Joel from Engage Worship and Resound Worship respectively. Both organisations support church music and leading at the grassroots, and fundamentally that’s what the hole thing is about – supporting writers in church to create songs that speak in the context of their local community.
It’s a very different approach to the global megachurch “Contemporary Christian Music Chart” world where we find a lot of the more popular songs. Writing a specific song to meet the needs of my own church is something I’ve been privileged enough to do once or twice, and it’s brilliant to see these folks being part of that movement on a wider basis.
Locally, I’ve been working with Phil at Four Oaks Baptist to gather church songwriters to share material and support one another. That’ll be back in September, by which time I hope to have written even more.
Leave a Reply