There are a few song writers that stand out in our services. I’d like to introduce you to a few of them over time, hoping that we might connect more with the content of our worship by understanding the creative process of the people who craft it.

Consider Stuart Townend. He is the author of many popular sacred songs, several of which are a part of our regular rotation of worship music. He grew up in the Church of England, teaching himself the guitar as a teenager, around the same time that he gave his life to God. For the last twenty years, Townend has made an incredible impact on the church. If you have a moment, check out the video provided below. I’m always amazed by how “human” some of the most influential people in the church tend to be.

This week, we will sing two of his songs. “In Christ Alone” and “How Deep the Father’s Love For Us”. How Deep is a beautiful modern hymn that meditates on God’s sacrifice in giving up his son. In this 3-minute video, Townend describes what went in to this timeless worship song.

This Sunday, we will confess corporately as we always do. Well, not exactly as we always do. We will sing it, and we will recite it together, but we won’t confess silently. Although our corporate worship will always contain certain elements, those elements can take on a number of forms. We know that our liturgy, our traditions and our rituals can not and will not supersede the life-giving Spirit or its work in our meetings. Thus our designs for worship should point believers to that very real, experience-altering presence promised in God’s word, while pointing the non-Christian to the gospel for security.

Let’s explore some new ways to recount the gospel to each other in God’s presence Sunday. Consider this song of preparation – with confession at its heart – from one of my favorite Christian song writers, Brooks Ritter: Waters of Forgiveness

By his wounds, our debts were paid.
Come sinner, find your life.

Each of our worship services includes a time of confession. This part of our liturgy has always interested me, largely because it is a practice found across various religious traditions. So why do we do it? There’s a lot to that answer, and I’ll unpack it over the course of several weeks. To understand how corporate confession of sin could find a place in protestant worship, consider the grand context of our worship. When we gather to worship our God, we are recounting the gospel story, illustrating it through our own experiences, and reiterating our assurance in it. Everything we do on Sunday points to the cross. That’s why, when we confess our sins, we remind ourselves that we were lost, in need of something we could not secure on our own. And it is equally important to be reminded, as often as we confress together, that Christ’s work satisfied his wrath once and for all. Jeff Purswell, of Covenant Life Church (the worship team’s host August 10-14), adds some depth to this conversation:

…it is through the power of the gospel that we are transformed to live new lives by the power of the Spirit. It is through the gospel that we are freed from selfishness to give our lives in service of others. Sure, the scope of Christ’s redemption is the whole cosmos (Colossians 1:20), but at the center of his redemptive concern are rebellious image-bearers whom he is ransoming to be his children. But all of these entailments, implications, and promises are founded upon the rock-solid, unchanging accomplishment of God through the gospel of his Son. It is this message that is God’s power to save sinners, to comfort the grieving, to motivate the listless, to encourage the downhearted, to assure the guilt-stricken.

This message never changes; this message is always true; and so our hope is always secure.

Read the full article here. See you Sunday.

A few weeks go, we introduced a song called “Lord You Have My Heart.” This week, we will sing it together as a congregation for the first time! Here are the lyrics again:

Lord you have my heart
And I will search for yours
Jesus take my life and lead me on.

Lord you have my heart
And I will search for yours
Let me be to you a sacrifice.

(men) And I will praise you Lord
(ladies) I will praise you Lord
(men) And I will sing of love come down
(ladies) I will sing of love come down
(men) And as you show your face
(ladies) Show your face
(together) We’ll see your glory here.

See you Sunday.

Despite what you may or may not have read in our bulletin for this week (error mine), Chris Tomlin did not co-author Amazing Grace. He did reimagine the song with the help of Louie Giglio to create My Chains Are Gone. We won’t be singing that version this week. Instead, we will rediscover the original version to its original tune together. We have discussed the story of John Newton in the past. He authored this song in the mid 18th century, writing it to herald his moment of “great deliverance” – a time at sea where all seemed lost.

What strikes me most about John Newton is his story. It’s human. It’s flawed and full of the need for God’s grace, just like mine. To sing these old songs and to preserve their original melodies at times can be a valuable excercise in worship. We remember that these song writers were men and women with problems. We sing the same words and these familiar tunes (in this case, most people agree that the melody stemmed from old slave spirituals, likely to have been sung on the slave ship that Newton captained), and we apply our own lives to them. As you offer your voice with the bride of Christ this week, put yourself in the hymn writer’s shoes. Have you ever had a moment of “great deliverance”? Would you have written it differently?