I think this song is particularly fitting for the season of Easter, but could be used just about any time of the church year. The text of verse 1 speaks of our need as humans for compassion, unfailing love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope and reminds us that Jesus provides us with all of those things – and much more – through His death. The second verse asks for Jesus to take us as we are despite what we fear and fail at. Then the chorus recognizes Jesus’ perfect ability to save us: “Saviour / He can move the mountains / My God is mighty to save / He is mighty to save…”.
It’s been my experience that this song is easy to teach. The verses have a little bit of syncopation in them, but the melody repeats itself within each verse twice, so with all the repetition, it’s really easy to catch on to how it goes and you’ll probably find that people are able to pick it up rather quickly. The rhythm of the melody in the chorus is really straight forward and the folks I’ve sung it with tend to love to belt it out. I hope you have a similar experience with it.
The bridge of this song is my favorite part. It’s the highest part of the whole song (the range of which doesn’t exceed an octave) and it’s a really great part to just vamp for a while. It can be completely rocked out and all the instruments can be wailing and going crazy because it’s just that kind of moment or the bottom can fall out from under and it can be sung a capella. Or anything in between, really. The last time I played this song the group I was playing with ended the song with 4 repetitions of the bridge. The first two were completely rocked out then all the musicians except the drummer dropped out for the third one and came back in for the fourth one, which we slowed down during the last few bars. Something about the congregation hearing themselves sing by themselves made them sing out more. It’s a powerful thing for a group to be able to sing without accompaniment. I know that not every congregation is going to be able to do that, but it just takes some practice. And it’s definitely worth working towards.
Repeating a part a bunch like that ensures that everyone present will learn the part and will (hopefully) be more comfortable and open about singing it. It’s important, though, to be sensitive to how the assembly is responding to all the repetitions. If people are singing and it seems like they’re getting something out of it, than by all means, keep going. But some communities just don’t sing like that, so perhaps a bunch of repetitions won’t be as meaningful to that group.
Where to find it:
- ccli.com (#4591782)
- praisecharts.com
Notable recordings:
- Hillsong – Mighty to Save
- Laura Story – Great God Who Saves
Seventh Day Slumber – Take Everything
Hear it now:
Download on iTunes
A really great song. As far as I know, there are four different Hillsong recorded versions of it, plus a separate fifth version by authors Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding, but I think that the version on the identically named Mighty to Save CD is the best of the lot (well, at least, it’s my favorite version of the five – ). By the way, all of the versions were recorded live at concerts.