Good Friday Hymn

Here's a song I recorded this morning with nothing but my guitar, free recording software, and an Xbox microphone. Hope it brings joy to you on this Good Friday as we look upon the cross of Christ.

When On The Cross words by John Newton, music by Rich Tuttle


When on the cross, my Lord I see,
Bleeding to death for wretched me,
Satan and sin no more can move,
For I am all transformed to love.

His thorns and nails, pierced through my heart,
In every groan I bear a part;
I view his wounds with streaming eyes,
But see! he bows his head and dies!

Come, sinners, view the Lamb of God,
Wounded and dead, and bathed in blood;
Behold his side and venture near,
The well of endless life is here.

Here I forget my cares and pains;
I drink, yet still my thirst remains;
Only the fountain head above,
Can satisfy the thirst of love.

Oh, that I thus could always feel!
Lord, more and more thy love reveal!
Then my glad tongue shall loud proclaim
The grace and glory of thy name.

Thy name dispels my guilt and fear,
Revives my heart, and charms my ear;
Affords a balm for every wound,
And Satan trembles at the sound.

The Twistgum Letters: Ignorant Subversion of the Enemy’s Will

The following is the second of a series of letters written by Arch-demon Twistgum to his nephew Baleswarm. How these letters were obtained is unknown, however it is obvious that they were not intended to be read by human eyes. From the letters we can deduce that Baleswarm has been assigned to tempt, hinder and ruin a Worship Leader, a subject matter in which his Uncle Twistgum has many years of demonic experience.

Dear Baleswarm,

Regarding your man’s soul—this cannot be helped. He is held firm and fast in the clutches of the Enemy, never to be released. The goal therefore, is not to tempt him to ‘switch sides’ but rather push and prod him in such a way that he unwittingly undermines his Master. Get your Subject to mistake his will for his Master’s will. Once he supposes his own efforts and reasons are ‘righteous’ then we have him, for no topic or issue will be too inconsequential. Every molehill will be a mountain. If you can muddle his mind about whether it is ‘right’ or not to sing ‘this or that’ or if it is appropriate to play a certain instrument or any other matter of insignificance then your Subject will be well on his way to achieving our objective.

The best way to accomplish such marvelous devilry is to cut off all of his communication with his Commander. As you have no doubt learned at Minion Academy, Our Father Below is adamant about this. Aim your sights at the clearest channels; Prayer and the Book (that blasted indestructible Book). This will greatly increase your ability to influence your Subject to make decisions according to his own “wisdom”.

Regarding Prayer, it is the way in which our shrewd Foe has ‘opened the lines’ allowing his servants complete and free access into his very presence. Disrupt that communication. Dish out problems that he feels he can handle on his own, in his own power. For a time this will give him a tower of confidence but we know that this tower will soon fall and if the lines of communication have been successfully disrupted then your Subject has no where else to turn for help other than himself, which is for our ends quite satisfactory. It is good news indeed to hear that your Subject often falters in this area. Exploit it. Throw Guilt against him and fasten it with nails. Use everything at your disposal to cause him to forget prayer or more importantly to Whom he is praying. But I warn you, Baleswarm, be on your guard, for the reality may be that he turns to the Book. And this is simply unacceptable.

From your descriptions it seems unlikely that your Subject will give up the Book without a fight. You said yourself that he ‘submits to it’. Well, if you are to achieve this goal of your Subject’s ignorant subversion of the Enemy’s will then in this area you must be highly deceitful. However, deceit is a tricky business. In situations such as this we cannot simply cast our nets in full view, this is too obvious. No, we must seek to entangle him strand by strand and knot by knot, so that his hands are bound before he can loose his feet. In the Book the Enemy has clearly put forward His agenda. His will is clear for all to see. It seems highly unlikely that you will be able to get your Subject to doubt it, not yet at least, so begin to lay your strands by getting him riled up over the fringes. It really matters not which topic he enthralls himself with, just as long as it has nothing to do with the central menacing message about the Enemy’s Son. The more enamored he becomes with one small part of the Book the more likely he will invert the entirety of it. The danger is that nearly every part points, one way or another, to that horrible event of the Enemy’s Invasion and the Mission He accomplished, so make sure whatever pet project your Subject piddles with always points away from the confounding cross.

There is much more about this that I would like to share with you my dear nephew, but that would require getting into specifics. Take these general recommendations and apply them to your situation, and as this correspondence continues I shall assist you in tailoring the finer details that pertain to you and your Subject. As for now, time grows short (it ever grows shorter!) and I am needed for council in another matter. It appears that your brother Grimstone’s Man (a deacon) has his church in such upheaval that the ‘sheep’ will soon be scattered. Such delight!

Your Most Esteemed Uncle,

Twistgum

The Twistgum Letters: Baleswarm’s New Assignment

The following is the first of a series of letters written by Arch-demon Twistgum to his nephew Baleswarm. How these letters were obtained is unknown, however it is obvious that they were not intended to be read by human eyes. From the letters we can deduce that Baleswarm has been assigned to tempt, hinder and ruin a Worship Leader, a subject matter in which his Uncle Twistgum has many years of demonic experience.

Dear Baleswarm,

It is only natural that you have sought my advice; my experience in this matter far exceeds the training you received at Minion Academy. Although I don’t see why you have delayed in requesting such knowledge from your dear Uncle Twistgum, I suppose it is now neither here nor there.

The duty of oppressing a minister of the Enemy can be extremely taxing so I am pleased to hear that you are making inroads with your newest assignment. But I fear this early success has given you a false impression of the battle to come. The consistency of weekly gatherings (upon that most wretched of days) in which your subject leads the Enemy’s camp with the most abysmal, and yet most potent form of worship—Song—will no doubt severely hinder your efforts, causing you much frustration and agitation. And this is merely a byproduct. I dare say you have your work cut out for you if your subject approaches his duty with any sort of seriousness and devotion. Know this Baleswarm, though the task is great the rewards are even greater, for your subject is but the first in a long line of dominoes, cause him to fall and many will follow.

Your efforts in sowing the seed of Pride on account of his office are valiant but I fear it is rather a premature step. For the Enemy is a crafty tyrant who will allow your subject to fall exposing his Pride and will soon remedy the situation. So heed my advice and start with the man in a more subtle manner. Instead of Pride start with Guilt. Because the Enemy has qualified this man for such a position, rather than achieving it on his own, the groundwork is already laid for us. All you must do is continually point out his unworthiness of such a ‘high’ office (‘Worship Leader’ is such an arrogant title, is it not?). Amplify his sinful past. Leave abundant snares of temptation. Make sure those closest to him remind him of his faults. Once this foundation is laid it is vital for your subject to strive for worthiness in anything but what the Enemy has determined. Distract him with ‘good’ things. Rigid Attendance, Musical Excellence, Recognition, &c. It is important that you be ready with a new distraction, however small, for your subject will be restless in his search for worthiness. If all goes according to plan your subject will be driven to Pride, not because of his office (as you are attempting), but because of his efforts to validate himself as one worthy of such an office. His unceasing, unsatisfying search for worthiness will remain fruitless and, left to this course, will turn into despair. Suddenly his office becomes a thing to be despised. Misery and Depression will turn into Anger and Resentment. Oh, such joy!

At this point any number of wonderful things might happen. He may resign (good, though now he has less persuasion on other souls), or he may leave his current post for another (better, for we can now assist in building his new ministry on bitterness and disdain), or he may spread his infected influence on others under his care and fragment his congregation the same way a sledge hammer might fragment a window (best of all, for obvious reasons).

I look forward to hearing about your progress in this magnanimous endeavor and I implore you to give careful consideration regarding my instruction on this matter in our future correspondence.

Your Esteemed Uncle,

Twistgum

Bifrost Arts: Conference on Liturgy, Music & Space

In March of 2011 Bifrost Arts will be presenting a conference based on curriculum entitled "Liturgy, Music, & Space". The lineup of speakers and leaders looks to be incredible. I'm really excited about this. Here's what they say on their website:

Each week, we tell our congregations a story with how we use liturgy, how we use music, and how we use space in worship. Bifrost Arts has developed a small group and Sunday School curriculum entitled "Liturgy, Music, & Space" to help churches walk through a coherent, biblical view of how these elements of worship are forming us.

Join us from March 29-31 as we present this curriculum at a conference with lectures, workshops, and times of worship in St. Louis, Missouri with:

Nicholas Wolterstorff
Bryan Chapell
Greg Thompson
Kevin Twit
Betsy Steele Halstead
Isaac Wardell

& The Welcome Wagon.

Conference fee is $150. Discounts are available for students and church employees from small congregations.

So many reasons to be excited about this. Bryan Chapell wrote the amazing book "Christ Centered Worship" (which you can find a link to at the bottom right of the blog). The book has virtually revolutionized the way I approach the construction of a worship service. Kevin Twit is the founder of Indelible Grace. If you are a reader of my blog then you will know the major respect I have for Indelible Grace. We regularly use their hymns in our worship. Isaac Wardell is the masterful Creative Director of Bifrost Arts. I had the privilege to be led in worship by Isaac at the Crowder's Fantastical Conference. Wardell is the real deal. The Welcome Wagon were also at Crowder's conference. I even got to chat for a few minutes in the hotel lobby. They are amazing, humble, and authentic folks who create great art that accentuates the gospel.

I am going to try to make every effort to be there. It will be difficult since the conference is in the middle of the week but this is just too good to pass up!

If you want more information go to the Bifrost Arts website here, or their Facebook page here.

Giving New Life to Old Hymns: Part II

In Part I we discussed 3 ways in which we can revive hymns in our local congregations. We briefly touched on the most prevalent way which is to Re-tune, that is, taking an old and often unfamiliar hymn text and writing an original tune for it. We went into a bit more detail for the other two; Rearrange and Rewrite. Today we will look at the last two ways in which we can serve our congregations by reviving hymns: Replace and Redeem.

Replace
This is perhaps the easiest way to give life to an old hymn. Replace the hymn text that is associated with a familiar tune with an unfamiliar text. With good judgment and common sense you should be able to do this with just about any old hymn text. Most hymns are written in a particular metre so that they might be sung to any number of tunes that are also in the same metre. Many people find it humorous that “Amazing Grace” can be sung to the tune of “Gilligan’s Isle” or “House of the Rising Sun” but the reason for this is because the text and tunes of all of these songs were written in what is known as Common Metre. Common Metre can also be read as 8.6.8.6. This is simply a reference to the amount of syllables which are found on a particular line of the song. Line 1 has eight syllables while Line 2 has six.

There are all types of metres and most modern hymnals contain an index of metres so that you can easily match a text with a tune. I have flipped through my copy of Spurgeon’s “Our Own Hymn-Book” and have found a text in Common Metre at random: Hymn 494, written by Joseph Humphreys in 1743. You can easily sing this text to the tune we commonly use for “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”:

Come, guilty souls, and flee away
Like doves to Jesus’ wounds;
This is the welcome gospel-day
Wherein free grace abounds
God loved the church, and gave His Son
To drink the cup of wrath:
And Jesus says, He’ll cast out none
That come to Him by faith.

This is immensely simple and there are a million possibilities. Where I serve, we recently sang a song by Isaac Watts to the tune of “Jesus Paid it All”. The tune is known by most but the text is completely new to all. The tune for “Jesus Paid it All” is not exactly easily applicable for many older texts as the metre is a bit irregular, but finding and fitting a text was relatively painless.

The text I used by Watts was originally written in Small Metre, which is 6.6.8.6., however I had to tweak the wording slightly to fit the tune but I am confident that no harm was done to Watts’ original. For the refrain I simply used the last verse which serves as a fitting response for the other verses to revolve around. I have italicized the refrain below.

Sing His Bleeding Love
(to the tune of Jesus Paid it All)

Not all the blood of beasts
On Hebrew altars slain
Gives the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain

But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
Sacrifice of nobler name
And richer blood than they

Believing, we rejoice
To see the curse removed;
O Praise the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And sing His bleeding love

My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,
Like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin

My soul looks back to see
The burdens Thou didst bear
Hanging on the cursed tree
And hopes her guilt was there

Another aspect of replacement is simply the opposite approach. Instead of replacing a familiar text with an unfamiliar one, try placing a familiar text with an unfamiliar tune. There are tons of tunes, all listed by metre, over at CyberHymnal. Do some clicking around and listen for some tunes that you believe might connect with your people, or find tunes that might capture a certain mood. Make note of those tunes and grab a familiar hymn text and match it with this unfamiliar tune. The result will be that the text is now sung in a different light, hopefully exposing truth in a fresh or greater way to your congregation.

Personally I would love to find an old tune hidden away that would re-energize a hymn like “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood”. Such a great text that has become attached to a decent catchy tune, however to me the tune gives off a ‘1946 Tent Revival-ish’ kind of feeling that has the capability to become sappy and sentimental.

Redeem
In some aspect every hymn that is tailored and tweaked is being redeemed in some form or another. In a previous example I showed how I used Rearranging and Rewriting to give new life to “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior”. That hymn has in a sense been redeemed and now serves useful in its new purpose to our congregation. In fact many songs I’ve tried to redeem are songs from the late 19th and early 20th century, mainly because the tunes are often familiar but the content is rather shoddy, or vise versa, the content is solid but the tune is pretty hokey.

But when I speak of Redeeming a hymn I also want our focus to be a little narrower. The way I am thinking of Redeeming is taking a hymn, or a verse from a hymn, and correcting it in such a way that it exposes the truth in a better way. This may be theological or grammatical and may call for removal or replacement or both.

As a side note I should mention that we should first determine if the hymn is worth redeeming at all. If the text is junk and the tune is junk then you should probably put it out of its misery. A song that is not worth redeeming to me is a song like “In the Garden”. Aside from it being a theological monstrosity, the text is sappy and the music is sappier. I am content to junk it.

But there are many hymns that are well loved and often times their flaws or shortcoming are overlooked. Again, we should always keep our congregational context in mind as we seek to redeem hymns. The word ‘fetter’ may be fine for a particular congregation while another congregation is left wondering what in the world a ‘fetter’ is. Here are a few things I have done:

The carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” is loved and sung by millions around Christmas time every year. It also has a great tune. But the problem with this carol is that there is no mention of Christ! There are subtle illusions to Jesus, but the song is essentially about singing angels and peace on earth. The reason for this becomes a bit clearer when we understand that the author, Edmund Sears, was a Unitarian who did not believe in the divinity of Christ. Knowing this, when it comes to selecting carols for worship what do we do with this old, beloved song? Do we scrap it or redeem it? I decided that for my congregation I would seek to redeem it. So I sat down with pen and paper and intentionally put Christ into the song while maintaining the flavor of the song so that this extra verse didn’t feel like it was out of place. Now the congregation sings these lines as either the first or last verse:

He came down from His heavn’ly throne
Into a world of death
And with His perfect sacrifice
the sinner now is blessed
Though as a Child in manger lay,
He still is Christ the King
“All glory be to God on high!”
the saints and angels sing

A simpler example of this might be the changing of a word or two simply for clarification. The gospel song “To God be the Glory” contains amazing lyrics, packed with the language of the atonement. However there are a few words that I have changed for clarification. During the first verse we sing of Jesus:

Who yielded his life, an atonement for sin
And opened the lifegate that all may go in

These words are true, but there remains the possibility that one may be led to believe that when Jesus “opened the lifegate that all may go in” that it includes those who enter in without faith or without belief in Jesus. To some this seems like a very minor issue. To myself, also, this is a fairly minor issue, but I would rather fix a minor, almost unnoticeable, crack before it gets chipped away and becomes a glaring hole in someone’s understanding of the gospel. So I changed the wording to:

And opened the lifegate, by faith enter in

I’ll admit that it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue the same way but it get’s the point across and there is no confusion as to how one ‘goes in’.


When Charles Spurgeon was compiling a hymnbook for his people he amassed nearly 1000 hymn texts, yet he was compelled to compose a few hymns himself. In the preface to his hymnbook he writes, “The editor [Spurgeon] has inserted with great diffidence a very few of his own composition…and his only apology for so doing is the fact that…he could find no version at all fitted for singing, and was therefore driven to turn them into verse himself.” Spurgeon wrote new texts for his people because he knew his people. The reason given is that, in a few cases, he could find ‘no version at all fitted for singing’. This is a very subjective statement. Perhaps the church down the street would find it rather fitting to sing the very songs Spurgeon chose to substitute. Spurgeon understood his congregation and their context and served them accordingly. When you tailor and tweak these hymns for your congregation you are doing the same thing. You understand your congregation and their context and you serve them accordingly. Always remember that the treasury of hymns can be a toolbox for ministry.

I would love to hear what you have done to Retune, Rearrange, Rewrite, Replace, Redeem, and ultimately Revive hymns in service to your congregation.

Giving New Life to Old Hymns: Part I

I am so grateful for the abundance of hymnody that has been passed down to us throughout the ages. I am also grateful for the resurgence of these hymns through groups and ministries like Indelible Grace and Red Mountain Music. I really feel that one of the reasons this resurgence has some real oomph behind it is that reviving hymns accomplishes two important things at once: On one hand it establishes a real connection with our Christian forefathers and on the other it is immensely authentic.

The connection to the past is obvious, but I say that this reviving of hymns is authentic because it gives our congregation a real voice. We are able to say the same thing that Isaac Watts said but in our own context. The ability to take the texts of these old hymns and give them new life in the midst of our congregations is an amazing gift to the modern church. And again, while I am grateful that there are groups and churches out there doing this, I want to encourage the local church worship leader to begin doing this as well. As talented as Matthew Smith is, he ultimately doesn’t know your congregation like you do. You have your finger on the pulse of your congregation; you know their needs and what they need.

Beyond Re-Tuning
Much of the focus of this resurgence of hymns has been writing brand new tunes to old hymn texts. Though it is hardly a new concept, I’ve heard this idea cleverly called a Re-tune. This is the most obvious way hymns are being used in this resurgence, however the idea of giving life to old hymns doesn’t always have to end with a new tune. For local worship leaders the goal shouldn’t be writing a new tune, the goal should be serving your congregation with this ancient treasury of hymns. There are a variety of ways we can use hymns to serve our congregation aside from writing a brand new tune. I want to offer a few other suggestions beyond Re-tuning that will allow you to tailor hymns to serve your people.

Tailoring and Tweaking our Treasured Hymns
Inspired by the phrase Re-tune I have categorized a few ways we can tweak, tinker with, and tailor this massive treasure of hymnody we have at our disposal. Aside from a complete Re-tune I have come up with four ways in which we can do this: Rearrange, Rewrite, Replace, and Redeem. Some will overlap, but I believe we can utilize each one for the glory of God and the edification of our churches. We’ll look at two of these today and two in a later post.

Rearrange
One very easy way to give a hymn new life is by rearranging it. I find that this has worked best for me with some of the old familiar gospel songs that often have a refrain after each verse. A simple way to rearrange this type of song is to not sing the refrain after every verse. For example, for the song “The Solid Rock” you might begin with the refrain:

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

Then sing Verse 1 followed by Verse 2. Only after Verse 2 would you sing the refrain once more. This is only a slight change but it will be breath of fresh air to a congregation who has sung it the same way for most of their life. Compare the arrangements side by side:

Normal      Rearranged
Verse 1       Refrain
Refrain        Verse 1
Verse 2       Verse 2
Refrain        Refrain
Verse 3       Verse 3
Refrain        Verse 4
Verse 4       Refrain
Refrain

The trick however in rearranging is to not mess up the logic of the original text, so you likely wouldn’t sing “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” in reverse or in a mixed order. But you can still rearrange a hymn by repeating a verse or portion of a verse at the end of a song. Use it as a tag to reinforce the theme of the hymn or to expose a particular truth that you want to drive home. In this case, at the end of “Come Thou Fount” you might repeat the middle of the last verse:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it
Seal it from Thy courts above

Rewrite
Rewriting is the opposite of Re-tuning. This is taking a familiar tune and writing brand new words to it. Perhaps a tragedy has taken place in the church and you cannot find the words to say in any particularly familiar hymn, nor does the congregation have the time to learn a new song during their heartbreak. Penning new lyrics to an old tune can be a powerful tool to serve your congregation well. If you are able to give your congregation new words to sing in a familiar way that meets them where they are, there is likely no better way a worship leader can serve people in a time of grief. This can be done for many different seasons in the life of a local church.

Rewriting can also be used to reinforce a certain theme or a particular truth that the pastor might be preaching on. This is a good way for you and your pastor to team up for the cause of the gospel. Again, familiarity with the context of your local congregation is key.

Rewriting can also be a good starting place for you and for those interested from your congregation to begin re-tuning your own hymns. Instead of worrying about an original tune, begin with a familiar tune. This instantly gives you a way to see if the words you write are singable and at the same time automatically provides a particular mood for your song. Perhaps you will be content to simply sing your new song with the old tune, but don’t be afraid to branch out every now and then and try a new tune. This is a great first step in hymn writing.

Below is an example of a Rewrite I did earlier this year with “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior”. I must admit it is only a partial rewrite because I only rewrote the refrain based on the verses. The reason for this rewrite is because I felt like this song had become a one trick pony. The only time we broke it out was after the sermon, and then we only sang the first verse and refrain. I had always felt that the remaining three verses were more powerful than the first, but the refrain always pulled us away from the truths explored in those verses. So I ditched the first verse and rewrote the refrain section based on its preceding verse. Instead of a constant refrain pleading to Jesus “Do not pass me by” there is now a logical progression that runs through the song from unbelief and sorrow, to salvation and grace, to eternal joy through Jesus. The tune remained the same, but now the song has been set free and we’re able to use this song in a more meaningful and purposeful way in our service. The verses are original and the italicized refrains are my additional rewrites.

Let Me at Thy Throne of Mercy
(to the tune of “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior”)

Let me at thy throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief
Kneeling there in deep contrition;
Help my unbelief
Jesus, Jesus help my unbelief!
Glorify the Father through my
sorrow, loss and grief

Trusting only in thy merit
Would I seek thy face
Heal my wounded, broken spirit
Save me by thy grace
Jesus, Jesus, save me by thy grace!
Through the cross have mercy on all
sinners in this place

Thou the spring of all my comfort
More than life to me
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in heav’n but thee?
Jesus, Jesus; More than life to me!
Endless pleasure! Joy abounding!
All are found in Thee

In my next post I’ll discuss two more ways in which we can use the treasury of hymns to serve our congregation. In the meantime I hope that this post has encouraged you to begin not only selecting hymns, but utilizing them in skillful ways to serve your church.

Matthew Smith, Indelible Grace, and My Hymn Seminar Notes

Yesterday I attended a seminar on Hymns with Matthew Smith from Indelible Grace Music. If you are unfamiliar with Indelible Grace I would encourage you to check them out immediately. Indelible Grace is a group that Matthew Smith has participated in for about 10 years and they are rooted in the college ministry of the PCA called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). They are doing something the church has done for a long time, which is putting hymn texts to modern music. It sounds simple enough but the practice, for the most part, has fallen by the wayside in our day and age of modern, cutting edge, happy-clappy worship songs. They are a driving force in the resurgence of hymnody today.

At the seminar Matthew Smith gave a brief history of his life as a worshipper and how he got involved with Indelible Grace. I was struck by how similar our stories are. He grew up in a Christian home, led worship for the youth group, and felt like a failed worshipper. Much of his guilt and feelings of failure were a direct result of the songs they sang and what he falsely thought worship should be. Matthew said he had a hard time explaining this feeling but I knew exactly what he was talking about. In some ways he felt as if worship meant that he had to ‘disconnect’ in some since and ‘attain’ a certain ‘level’ of worship for worship to actually occur. The songs they sung (as did I) were songs that said, “I want to” and “I will do” and he felt the weight of failure on his shoulders. Then he discovered RUF in college and was intrigued by two things; the acoustic guitar folk rock music caught his eye first, but what really kept him and drew him in were the hymns they were singing. The hymns placed all the emphasis on Jesus rather than on himself. Matthew had found that which released him of his feelings of guilt and failure in worship; instead of the world becoming a fuzzy disconnect that he always thought it should be, the world actually became more real, it became clearer and sharper in focus. I don’t know if this resonates with you but I completely understand where he is coming from, and so I found much encouragement and confirmation in my own story after hearing his.

After this Matthew gave a brief, but loaded presentation about why we need hymns and why he and Indelible Grace love the hymns so much. Before he began he made clear that when he talks about Hymns he uses the word ‘hymn’ as being distinguished from what many people consider as hymns, such as the Gospel Songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gather Music, etc.

I’ve listed the notes I took below. I summarized a bit but all of it is derived from what Matthew said.

Hymns engage our:

Imagination – Hymns paint a picture and they can be both personal and universal at the same time

Intellect – Hymns make you think about what you are singing – they help people engage or participate in worship more fully – the over all theme of a hymn should be understood after singing it once, but it needs to be sung over and over to better understand it.

Will – Hymns make you want to live differently rather than telling you to live differently – they have a shaping quality that assists the singer to change certain beliefs – Hymns say things you don’t want to say

Emotions – Hymns effect our emotions without being emotionalism and without manipulation – When you cry to a country song, it’s because the songwriter wanted/intended for you to cry. When you cry to a hymn it is because the hymn writer is crying with you. We share the emotion with the writer. (Matthew used the country song example because he knows of artists in Nashville that do it.)

Hymns are:

True – Hymns tell the truth about who we are and who God is

Good Theology – Hymns contain good (sound) theology – Kevin Twit says “Hymns are theology on fire” which means that hymns convey theology not in a stoic or stagnant kind of way, but it gives theology life and it spreads and is efficacious

Beautiful – Hymns are not just a tool to be used for practical purposes, ie. Just to teach, or for evangelism, etc (I tend to be guilty of this) – Art that is only practical is propaganda – ‘beauty’ does not equal ‘pretty’, beauty can be ugly – bad art lies and at it’s worst lies about the human condition

(As a side note I would add on my own that Hymns are also authentic. In that they were written most often for the hymn writer’s local congregation to aid in worship rather than written to be sold as a product to consume. I wish I would have thought of this during the discussion time to hear Matthew’s thoughts…anyway, back to the notes.)

Good Writing and Bad Writing

CS Lewis – he referred us to what Lewis had to say about the difference between good and bad writing. Although he didn't quote it, this is the quote he was referring to:

'In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please, will you do my job for me.”'

Bad Writing tells you how to feel (ie. That woman is beautiful)

Good Writing describes and displays the woman in such a way that the reader can only come away with the conclusion that the woman is a knockout.

According to this criterion, hymns would be considered “Good Writing” whereas most modern day praise songs would likely be considered “Bad Writing”. Where a modern praise song might say, “Jesus is amazing” a hymn would take three or four lines (or maybe the whole song!) describing and displaying Jesus in such a way that the singer can only come away with the conclusion that Jesus is amazing.

Then we moved into a Q&A/Discussion time that produced some great food for thought:

When asked what makes a hymn a hymn (as in distinction to modern songs) Smith said it has much to do with the form of the hymn. The secret weapon/advantage of the hymn is that it is Verse, Verse, Verse, Verse and develops a thought without interruption (the interruption typically being a chorus). But he was quick to point out that the chorus in many songs are not bad, but the verses of these songs tend to point only to the chorus so the development of thought isn’t always as strong as a hymn.

When discussing archaic language Matthew was not against changing language so that modern readers might understand, but he also felt it was perfectly fine to leave archaic language as it was written just the same. In doing so the singer will have to think and learn. He said he doesn’t have a rule about it because a hard and fast rule such as this destroys art.

The best part of the discussion was when the topic became sadness or darkness (in a sad since) in hymns as opposed to happy, peppy, chipper songs. Before I attended this it was a strong conviction of mine that the church must sing songs that prepare people for suffering, and sing them every week, and after listening to this discussion I am even more encouraged and fully strengthened that my conviction is valid. Here are four quotes that I wrote down during that discussion:

- When planning a service or when selecting songs: “Never aim for happy—always aim for joy.”

- “Mournfulness in songs doesn’t equal Mopey-ness.”

- “Jesus was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. If your songs don’t reflect that you’re picking the wrong songs.”

- In discussing how people at an A.A. meeting can often times be more honest than at church and how the church is a place for broken people: “The church should be a place where if you boast in yourself you should look stupid. Go play golf stupid.”

Following the seminar was a concert with Matthew and the Indelible Grace band. These guys not only love hymns and make a great case for them, they make excellent music for us to sing them to. I praise God for Indelible Grace and others who continue to put great music to great hymn texts.