Way Maker by Leeland

Many phenomenal contemporary worship songs are being released in today’s world, one of which is “Way Maker” by Leeland. “Way Maker” is a song originally released in 2016 by Sinach, which has been reimagined by Leeland in 2019. In a time where worship songs are being written on the basis of feeling and how one sees God, this song focuses directly on God; who he is and what he is doing.

Lyrical Content

Verse

You are here
Moving in our midst
I worship you
I worship you
You are here
Working in this place
I worship you
I worship you

The verses in this song are a lyrical picture of the definition of what worship is: Our Response to God’s Revelation. “You are here moving in our midst” is a revelation from God that his people are recognizing. “I worship You” is our response to his working. Revelation: “You are here working in this place” and Response: “I worship You.” Throughout this song there is this depiction of what worship is theologically that manifests itself in the verses. One is literally singing the theology of worship while worshiping.

Chorus

The chorus begins to state truths about who God is and wraps it up by saying, “My God, that is who You are”. Singing the truths is a great reminder of who the God of creation is, but singing at the end, “My God, that is who You are” gives a direction to who those truths are about. It’s also important to note the use of pronoun in the Chorus: “My” instead of “Us.” Using “my” turns this song into a personal song. The benefits of this pronoun is that the worship is vertical; each person singing those words is singing them in relation to themself and God. The negative is that when the congregation is gathered together, there is no acknowledgement of the “us” in that moment of worship.

Bridge

Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working
You never stop, You never stop working

The bridge of this song perhaps may be the most powerful part. This is where the comment that was previously made about worship writers today writing on the basis of feeling surfaces. A majority of worship songs today have lines that say something along the lines of, “I can feel it” or “I can see it” virtually ignoring the fact that sometimes God’s people can’t see or feel the providence of God until after it passes. For instance, when Moses was leading his people out of the promise land, he was definitely not on the borders of the waters saying, “I can see that the waters are gonna move”. Instead, he trusted that God was going to provide, he didn’t necessarily “see” what was gonna happen. The bridge of this song describes perfectly that even when an individual can’t see something happening doesn’t mean that God is not bringing about his provision.

Musical Content

The instrumental music in the arrangement of this song has the mainstream sound that you hear groups like Elevation, Passion, and Bethel, It starts off very “atmospherical” with a piano lead part, which usually is done by an open drone pad on top of a piano/pad sound and ambient guitar sounds. There is some punch with a syncopated 808 kick pattern and a tambourine hit on the “and” of 2. The tambourine effects on it like reverb, which adds to the ambient sound.

The song sustains this sound until the second verse where it begins to pick up some motion with the addition of the drums. It keeps building into the Chorus where everyone comes in, and it stays this way until the song reaches the Bridge where it goes back down, builds into a big bridge, then builds into an all in Chorus. Instrumentally speaking, the musical rollercoaster of starting low to building big back to low then back to big follows the trend of mainstream worship music today.

Vocally, Leeland begins singing in the lower register of his voice, which adds to the reflective mood of the beginning of the song. He stays in this lower register until about the second half of the second verse, then as the music begins to build he jumps the octave to match the building into the first big Chorus. The range that Leeland sings in pretty much follows the instrumental musical rollercoaster.

Is it Congregational?

Yes, except for one minor aspect: the original key. One way to combat this is to lower the key. Another way is to have a person on the worship team sing the melody an octave lower for those members that can’t sing high. Once that aspect is taken care of, there is nothing that says this song isn’t appropriate for the congregation. The lyrics are biblically true and the music is culturally relevant. It’s hard to make a strong case that this song shouldn’t be sung by any congregation, but so that you might come to the same conclusion that I’ve come to, here is a link to a video Leeland performing the song: