Worship Song Highlight: "Do It Again"

“Do It Again” is one of the most popular songs written by Elevation Worship. Some of their other titles include “O Come to the Altar” and “Resurrecting.” Elevation Worship is a ministry of Elevation Church, a multi-site church based out of North Carolina and pastored by Steven Furtick. “Do It Again” was co-written by Pastor Steven along with Chris Brown, Mack Brock, and none other than Matt Redman. You can listen to it on YouTube here.

This song is very meaningful to me personally, and I pray it will be meaningful to you as well. Think about this: 

When was the last time you experienced God answer a prayer and work a miracle? 

Off the top of my head, I can think of four huge instancesin my life that I can point back to and remember God answering a prayer in a miraculous way. The most recent was last year when he brought my grandfather, Herbert Cheesman (AKA “Papa Herb”), to faith in Christ. 

Although Papa Herb was baptized as a young teen in San Antonio, Texas, he fell away from faith after serving in the Army in the Korean War and then attending the University of Texas. He spent the majority of his 83 years as a skeptical agnostic. He was never antagonistic towards Christianity, though, and he was supportive of my dad going into ministry, and then later, me going into ministry. I was convicted in 2013 of his need for salvation and began to pray fervently for him. Over the course of time, I would ask him about the nature of his faith and doubts and outlook on life and the afterlife. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017, and I began to call him regularly and tell him I was praying for him.

Then in April of 2018, I was in San Antonio for a conference and we had a very poignant visit in his living room. Meg, Claire, and I had been planning on seeing him on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday night, he had a big scare and had to go to the Emergency Room. He returned home on oxygen, and we visited him in that weakened and scared state. The timing of this could not have been a coincidence! I asked him where he was with Jesus. He said he had believed as a teen, but then doubted, and now he was somewhere in the middle. I encouraged him that if he was open to it, he should pray, “Jesus, help me to believe.” He then prayed aloud with tears, “Jesus, help me to have faith.”

Well, his condition worsened. In late July, our little family drove down to San Antonio again to see him for what we knew would be the last time. On Saturday, July, 28, with my parents also there, Papa Herb told us in very simple words that he had come to faith. My dad read several scriptures to him, and then we asked him where he was with the Lord and what he was thinking. His response was, “I’ve really been thinking about what James and I discussed. All my life before now, I felt nothing. But now I am just believing.” He passed away on July 31, and I KNOW that he is in Heaven now.

As I drove back and forth to San Antonio that week for his funeral planning and services, I played “Do It Again” on repeat in my car. God delights to bring people from death to life! He delights to answer his children’s prayers! I was in awe of how he had “moved the mountain” of my grandfather’s skeptic heart and saved him!

This song is a fun song to play and sing, and I think the chorus resonates with just about every Christian:

“Your promise still stands, great is your faithfulness, faithfulness,

I’m still in your hands, this is my confidence, you’ve never failed me yet.”

But unless you are an actively praying believer, this song won’t mean that much to you. Furthermore, you have to be praying for things that only God can do!Most Christians are good about praying for daily needs, and rightly so. Yet I find that sometimes my prayer list is filled with things like, “Help me with this, that, and help this person with this and that.” We should always be praying “mountain-moving” prayers! So I encourage you, as you think about this song, start filling your prayer list with things like:

-God, save this person!

-God, make a way in this seemingly impossible situation!

-God, change the course of this nation!

-God, set apart someone I know as a laborer to the unreached!

I hope you will sing this song and then pray like Isaiah does in Isaiah 64:1-4:

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence-

As when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”

Musical Notes:

Sonically, a lot of Elevation Worship’s music is similar to other modern groups like Hillsong, Bethel, and Passion. However, I find their best songs have a narrower melodic range and easily sing-able and catchy melodies. (For example, “Do It Again” is contained within an octave and a step and does not strain a congregation if sung in the key of G or lower. We sing it in F). Furthermore, the lyrical content is gospel centered and biblical. That’s always best, right???!!! Truthfulness to the Bible should be the standard for lyrics, but unfortunately many modern songs fall short.