Welcome to Songs of Praise

A Songwriting Collaboration Site

This site was originally created by Elton Smith and Gilberto Barreto in 1996. It has changed a lot over the years as contributions from people around the world were added. There are 527 songs in 19 languages, 4 musicals and 783 images on this site. Everything is freely available for non-profit use. Many of our songs are registered with CCLI and reporting church use of our songs helps keep this site running. CCLI membership is not required to use the songs.

If you have written a song you would like people to hear on this site, contact me. In the past, people have sent songs, translations, musicals, recordings, artwork and a lot of encouragement. I look forward to hearing from you. - Elton Smith.


Songs

All Of My Heart

All of My Heart

Written in 1997 by Elton Smith and Larry Holder. Available in Afrikaans, Chinese, Dutch or Flemish, English, French, German, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak and Spanish. Be sure and hear the new recordings in English and Spanish.

Your Love Surrounds Me

Your Love Surrounds Me

Written by Elton Smith and Larry Holder. The video is set in ancient Rome and includes military scenes, volcano eruptions, and early Christians. My soul is safe because your love is all around.

How Long?

How Long?

Written by Elton Smith, Steve Israel and Larry Holder. The video is set in the American south after the Civil War. Samuel in Nigeria did a great job on the recording.

Love Found Me

Love Found Me

Written and recorded by Susan Krauter. A moving song inspired by the real adoption of a child from China. The children singing in the background sounds great.

He Brings The Sunshine

Written by Elton Smith, Larry Holder and Steve Israel in a Middle Eastern style and available in Afrikaans, Chinese, Dutch or Flemish, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish.


Musicals

Dan Zigler was the driving force in creating the first 3 musicals. He liked the songs and wanted to write plays featuring them. It was a labor of love. You can see photos from the presentation of the first two musicals.

The Perfect Gift

The Perfect Gift

A Christmas musical with scenes from the birth of Jesus. Written by Dan Zigler and Elton Smith. Contains 8 songs from this site. Pictures from 3 churches. Available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Resurrection Song

Resurrection Song

An Easter musical by Russell Adams, Larry Holder, Steve Israel, Joe Medrek, Rhesa Siregar, Elton Smith and Dan Zigler. Pictures from 4 churches. Available in English and Portuguese.

Come Fill My Heart

Come Fill My Heart

Written by Dan Zigler and Elton Smith. A story about a young woman's escape from prostitution. The theme song is sung beautifully by Tina Arseneau.

God Cares For You

God Cares For You

A Musical by Larry Holder for young voices based on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 and 6). The play and songs are on Larry's website.


Images

This started off as a display of interesting vacation pictures, but with AI image generation it has become more useful. I have been using SDXL to create song videos and am in the process of creating an image depicting each song (see examples in the song section above). I will make large versions of these available. Here are some examples from the AI Art category and a list of topics available.

People walking toward the sunrise Roman refugees waiting on the dock Jesus in the clouds Roman Christians worshiping in catacombs