Stepping Down and Moving On in Faith

Nearly every Sunday for the past four and a half years, we’d wake the kids up early, throw breakfast down their throats, and wrestle them in their clothes that we (my wife) set out the night before. It was an art form really. A streamlined chaos. And nearly every Sunday for the past four and a half years we would make the drive 45 minutes into the city. The landscape changed as we travelled, from crops and cattle and horses, to car dealerships and industrial buildings and upscale coffee shops. And nearly every Sunday for the past four and a half years we would begin our trek to church with a prayer. For our travel, for the worship service, for the leaders and teachers. And nearly every Sunday for the past four and a half years we would pray that God would help our unbelief, that he would increase our faith, that he would cause us to greatly depend on him and to trust in him continually.

God has been good to me and my family. He has kept us safe in our travels to and from church. He has blessed our church’s worship and teaching. And he has increased our faith. And God continues to answer prayer as he had revealed to us in increasing measure that the time was coming to step down from serving at Wornall Road Baptist Church. And, in his timing, God has closed that chapter in our lives. Yesterday was my last Sunday serving as Worship Pastor for Wornall Road Baptist Church.

The decision was hard and easy at the same time. It was hard for two reasons. The first was regarding discernment, battling a deceitful heart ever looking to increase my pride, my status, my glory, and praying that decisions would be made from faith and not from vanity. God, in his mercy and grace, provided a dear friend who helped me clarify these things which gave me a greater boldness to act in faith.

The second reason why the decision was hard was simply because of the love we have for the people at Wornall Road Baptist Church. There are real and genuine friendships founded in the blood of Christ. To leave, to not regularly be in a week-in week-out relationship with these friends, would be hard. But despite the pain, because these relationships are founded in the blood of Christ, we know that they cannot be sundered. Different and changed a bit on this temporal plain, yes, but not separated, not destroyed. We knew that to stay, to disobey, for the sake of friendships would only result in disaster. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” To be obedient and follow God in faith, and to still retain these amazing friendships, is a grace beyond measure to us!

I tasted that pain yesterday. I felt it in my heart and soul. If it’s true that the eyes are the windows to the soul then I saw some sad souls. My heart beats, even now, a blue rhythm for them. Yesterday evening God allowed us to spend time with our Gospel Community Group, our church’s version of small groups, and the pain was felt deepest here. But the pain is a good pain because it is evidence of deep roots. They prayed for us and God continued to humble me with their words of encouragement. It was the most fitting ending to a day of goodbyes. (Praise God that they are only temporary goodbyes!)

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Below is an edited letter that I sent to the elders that I pray gives a little insight into some of the factors at play when I decided to step down.

My Dear Brothers,

It is a comfort knowing that Christ is Lord over all and that God's sovereign hand touches everything. When I came to Wornall in the fall of 2008 it was in response to a help wanted ad I found on Midwestern's site about 6 pages in. The ad said help was needed with music ministry until about the summer of 2009. 

When I walked in to meet with John Mark and Kumar I saw the architecture and almost immediately assumed I wouldn't fit. Obviously I was dead wrong. Nearly the moment John Mark, Kumar, and I began to talk I was almost taken aback at how easy and right it felt. We clicked instantly. After I was on board for a while we joined up with Ryan and April's pre-Gospel Community, Gospel Community Group. I don't think I've expressed the deep gratitude for the love and the healing that God granted to us through the group through Ryan and April and Brian and Sarah and everyone else. That more than anything else, the almost immediate closeness and genuine feel of Christian brotherhood, was an indication to us that God had planned this for our good and his glory.

And then, only a handful of months after we arrived, we miscarried our twins. Again, God used Wornall to pour out love and grace on us. The following year is difficult to express how hard things were and at the same time how blessed we were. Arwen was born. We knew of her disability before she was born and it was the love outpoured and a heaping healthy dose of the truth of God's sovereignty preached from the pulpit at Wornall that sustained us in faith. Literally.

And so we grew, or rather God grew us, and God grew me in and with the congregation and under John Mark, in numerous ways, spirituality, theologically, musically, and an ever deepening love and knowledge of the gospel. And then to be a part of a team of leaders who are passionate for the gospel and a love for the church has only increased that growth in an exponential way. My love for you and for the church is deep, and in a real way eternal, for love in and through Christ is never transitory.

And so brothers, it pierces my heart—in a good way, a holy pain—when I say that my time at Wornall Road Baptist Church has come to an end. Over the last 6 months or so, I believe God has been preparing me for this. Many factors are at play, and I praise God with the greatest rejoicing that none of these factors involve sin or scandal. Many small things make the whole, and for me and my family, these things include; the time I’m able/unable to commit, the distance we travel, the increased care for my children, a real and weighty sense of a need to examine my calling in the ministry and what that looks like. There are other small reasons of the same sort, but these are in the main. And because of these things, not only do I think God is leading me to this decision for the good of myself and my family, but also for the good of Wornall Road.

This does not mean, whatsoever, that we desire to end any relationship! We love all of you and want to remain in a deep, loving, albeit now different, Christian friendships. We still want to do dinners! We still want to have our kids play together whenever possible. We will still be praying and rooting for Wornall Road.

As we make this transition we are stepping out in faith. I have no real foresight as to what lies ahead. What church we’ll go to, what ministry I’ll be involved in, etc. So I ask for your prayers in that.

I love you guys, I have been honored and privileged and count it among the highest blessings that God has allowed me to serve at Wornall Road and alongside all of you. May God richly bless His people at Wornall Road.

Through Christ, with the deepest love and affection,

Your brother,

Rich Tuttle

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We got home late last night and put the anxious dog outside and the kids to bed. The house was quiet and the feeling of my soul is hard to describe. It felt like it had been just washed with a spring rain. That after-rain smell. That’s the feeling. A type of mournful rejoicing. I’m still a bit hung-over with it today. I went out to get the dog in the cool night, which afforded me the opportunity to look at the bright stars shining through the flimsy clouds and to take a breath and recall the day and the past four and a half years. God is good.

Me and John Mark (My pastor, my brother, my friend)



Me and Ernesto (My right-hand man! I've never seen a more gifted and humble musician)




The last rehearsal. Sad and sweet.



Jesus Wept (Because He's Not a Pragmatist)

Take a gander through John 11.

Why did Jesus weep? Not cry. Not sniffle. Weep. Hopefully, the question seems odd. His friend died, why wouldn’t he weep, right? But then again, Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus up from the dead. So we ponder, if Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus, why did he weep?

This was the question proposed in the sermon this past Sunday, a worthy and accurate account of why Jesus wept. I will link to it when the audio is up. But as this question was posed my mind was wandering. There are many possible answers as to why he wept, but I think an important reason is that Jesus wept because he’s not a pragmatist.

A pragmatist looks at this situation and believes there is nothing to weep over. A pragmatist believes the ends justify the means and so Christ’s weeping before raising Lazarus doesn’t compute. At first glance it doesn’t appear that we view this through pragmatic lenses, but that is because we’re not dealing with a moral issue. It’s easy to spot and criticize pragmatism when evil is used as a path to do good. It’s harder to see it when we’re dealing with the practicality and usefulness of things.

A pragmatist looks at Jesus weeping and sees it as unnecessary. There is no reason why he should be weeping since the very cause of his weeping will be made right by himself in only a few moments. But Jesus, fully knowing that Lazarus will soon rise, still weeps.

The pragmatist simply is unable to come to terms with the fact that Jesus wept simply because he was sad. Twice Jesus was “deeply moved” says John. Jesus doesn’t put the cart before the horse. A man, his friend whom he loved, has died. Lazarus’ sisters, even in their belief in Jesus, are grieving and Jesus resonates with their grief. Something unnatural to the created order has taken place. Death. It’s wrong. And Jesus appropriately responds. Death is heavy, weighty, worth lingering over, even with the knowledge that it will one day be reversed. Jesus lingers over this. Takes the time to weep. The pragmatist is astonished at this. Why waste tears and sobs? Why not snap your fingers and get it over with?

If a pragmatist watching from the sidelines were to ask Jesus about it afterwards, here’s how I think it would’ve gone down:

Pragmatist: If you could raise him from the dead, why did you weep?

Jesus: Because he died and he was my friend and I love him and his sisters.

Pragmatist: No doubt you loved him, but why cry when you knew he’d come alive again?

Jesus: Because he died.

Pragmatist: Of course, but you knew he’d live again.

Jesus: And so will you.

Pragmatist: Sure, sure. Resurrection at the Last Day and stuff. But you knew beforehand that you would raise him from the dead. Your disciples told me that the very reason you came was to “go to awaken him”. You had this planned from before you came. You knew he died when you were far off, and the reason you came was to awaken him. But you still shed tears? Why?

Jesus: Because he died and he was my friend and I love him and his sisters.

If the pragmatist didn’t keep pestering, I’m sure he would’ve thrown up his hands in frustration and walked away.

There is no room for pragmatism in the slightest. Pragmatism demands an answer here that cannot be given because it will always be the wrong answer. Jesus wept because his friend died. Because he saw how much it grieved the sisters. Because death is wrong and weeping in the face of death is right and appropriate. Instead of snapping his fingers and getting the job done Jesus took the time to weep.

Why is it important for us to realize that Jesus’ weeping was a result of him not being a pragmatist? It’s important because there’s a heck-of-a-lot of pragmatists who follow Jesus and for some reason it seems most of them find their way into the ministry. It’s good to notice this because it forces us to realize that pragmatism is antithetic to the way Jesus operated. It’s good for us to see that pragmatism fails even when it’s disconnected from moral issues. A pragmatist sees Jesus’ weeping as unnecessary.

Ministers and pastors and church planters and leadership coaches and whoever else with their fingers in the pie ought to cling to this. Jesus doesn’t operate from a strategic pragmatic position. You’re not going to find a formulaic system you can pull from Scripture to discover the “Jesus Method” and if you do it’s because you’ve already spilled your pragmatic Kool-Aid all over the text. The only way to emulate Jesus is to suffer and die. Deny yourself and take up your cross and all that. That’s the proven track record and, surprise, it’s not pragmatic in the least.

This all sounds good. Pragmatism, boo! Take up your cross, yay! That is, until we get to the church budget, right? It tends to throw a monkey wrench into our leadership goals and ‘vision casting’, doesn’t it? Hopefully it causes us to look at things like grace a bit longer. How many scandals would strike the church if we took grace as seriously as Christ did, and not limit grace to only those who qualify for it under our pragmatic goals? We show love to victims of crime. Do we show love to criminals? Do we love people or do we love a demographic? I could go on. The implications of Jesus weeping are huge.

The Frolic Sanctity of Advent

Last year during the Advent season my wife, Anna, and I attempted to teach our children the story of Christ’s birth through song. We would all gather, rather haphazardly, around the couch or sprawled out on the living room floor. The intention was to teach the kids one hymn each Advent week until Christmas. We truly attempted to teach them more than one hymn, but our fatal (and fantastic) flaw was that our first hymn was “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”. When we tried to move on to a new hymn the children would have none of it. My feeble efforts in teaching “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” and “Away in a Manger” were met with resistant yawns. So I gave in. It was an O Come, O Come Emmanuel-athon.

Our eldest, Adison, from the moment she heard it, was determined to learn every word to the song. She soaked up every haunting note, carefully watching our mouths as we sang the words. Watching her sing it is infectious. Every now and then I still spot her off in a pew by herself before worship flipping through the hymnbook to find “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and then, with a studious finger-pointing technique, she traces the lines, singing softly to herself. She was seriously devoted to learning the song because her heart had it memorized the first time she heard it.

My son, Noah, on the other hand, was seriously devoted to flipping across the room while we tried to teach this hymn. He had no time for anyone mourning in lonely exile. He was ready to disperse them gloomy clouds and get to the good stuff. As we sang our way through those solemn, expectant verses, he was gearing up for the refrain, ready to unfurl a noise that would make a trumpet curse. “REEEJOICE! REEEJOICE!” Every little particle of that little boy’s body united as one biological choir striving towards this one purpose. “REEEJOICE! REEEJOICE!” His voice only gave credence to what the rest of his body was already saying. His face, with eyes wide and wild, screamed, “Rejoice!” His arms rocketed to the sky and his legs sprung him upwards faster than a spooked cat; together they cried, “Rejoice!” Had it not been for the ceiling, the Heavenly Host would’ve undoubtedly mistaken him for one of their own.

And so we sang. I held the hymnbook and carried the tune. My wife held onto Arwen, our third child, and carried our fourth, Willow, in her womb. Adison, like an anchor, delving the depths of the soul of the song, singing the ancient words as if it were the first time they had ever been sung. And we needed that weightiness, because the second our lips stopped moving we would’ve been hurled into the heavens—zipping through the Aurora Borealis and bypassing the Pleiades—borne on the wings of a little boy’s praise.

During that time I experienced, what Chesterton off-handedly calls, deep levity. The seriousness and gravity of the birth of God as Man dancing on the lips of children. Children who have yet to scratch the surface of the amazing implications of what it means for God to become Man, yet with a shriek and a laugh seem to understand it better and with more intimacy than the most learned theological scholar. C.S. Lewis described his Eve-like Green Lady in Perelandra as one who possessed ‘frolic sanctity’. As I think back on it, no better words could define such a moment. A family searching together the depths of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, not through textbooks and chalk dust, but through singing, laughing, and children jumping off of couches.

The Key to Successful, God-Pleasing Worship

I’m going to come straight out and give you the answer. The key to successful, God-pleasing worship is obedience. But wait. There’s more to this than meets the eye. Buckle up. Let’s jump in like this:

Throughout the Old Testament we see that right worship practices, while commanded by God, are not enough to please God. Worship actions, in and of themselves, weren’t enough. God, as we know, looks at the heart. The sacrifice of bulls wasn’t pleasing until the worshipper’s heart was broken and contrite. (Psalm 51). So often we see worshippers in the Old Testament perform the actions and rituals of worship perfectly, thinking this is enough to please God (after all, he commanded it, right?), but at the same time hates his neighbor. God saw this and called them out on it, saying essentially that their disobedience outside of worship negated their obedience in worship. This is precisely what Jesus was talking about when he said “These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” The worship practices were right on the outside, but the heart was rotten on the inside. “In vain do they worship me.”

On the flip side (and on a much neglected topic that, alas! will remain neglected here), God also condemns worship practices that have veered from His commands. God commanded that sacrifices be unblemished. Yet we find the priests in Malachi’s day (for instance) offering marred and blind sheep. God was not pleased with this worship either. But if we look closely we’ll see that the root for God’s displeasure is the same. Worshipping God in a way that he has not directed is a problem because at its root, it is also a heart problem.

So if there is one thing we could conclude about successful worship after briefly looking through the Old Testament it is that full obedience is the key to God’s pleasure in worship. Who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. The worshipper must be pure and clean outside the Temple to assure successful worship inside the Temple.

This is extremely bad news for us. Wait. What? Bad news? But we just figured out the key to successful worship! Let me explain.

All Bible-believing Christians come to the same conclusion: The biblical key to successful, God-pleasing worship is our obedience. However, once this is discovered and a church tries to implement it, the results are devastating (sexy for a season…but in the end, devastating). Once it is conveyed that our worship will not ‘work’ until we are obedient, we immediately begin to see two things (among others); Guilt and Pride.

Guilt creeps in when we realize we don’t know if we’ve been obedient enough for our worship to achieve success. Our sin is too blatant. We look to others in the church who obviously have it all together. We can’t even compete with their standard, let alone God’s standard. This leads to unending anxiety and/or despair. We live in never ending worry, always trying and realizing our failure to worship, or we simply just give up. What’s the point?

Pride creeps in when we’ve figured out just how obedient we need to be to achieve success in worship. God-pleasing worship becomes a formula. Do this, don’t do that, and worship becomes a success. Our sin isn’t as big a deal because it isn’t blatant (unlike those people). Over time, the standard we’ve been able to meet becomes our standard, the standard. (But of course, we maintain with confidence that it’s really God’s standard). We live in never ending false-assurance and judgmentalism. And the only thing that threatens our stability is when someone challenges our standard (how dare they challenge God’s standard!).

There is nothing new under the sun. This is exactly what the Israelites were doing in the Old Testament. This is what people were doing in Jesus’ day. The prideful Pharisees and the guilty tax collectors. And this is exactly why it is bad news for us that obedience is the key to successful, God pleasing worship. But it’s God’s plan, right? How can God’s plan be bad news? Well, God’s plan is actually good. Perfect actually. Holy. The problem isn’t God’s plan, the problem is us, and a holy plan is bad news for unholy people.

When it comes to successful worship, we simply cannot turn the ‘key’ to achieve anything. We can’t even put the key in the key hole. Our dirty hands work like a resisting magnet when we come close to the key. As much as we want it and as hard as we try the key will always be just outside of our reach. The guilty know this and freak out. The prideful are too busy looking through the key hole and gloating over their vantage point. Big whoop. They’re all still outside. No one is pleasing God with their worship. Bad news.

But the good news is this; Jesus was obedient for you.

God is the same. He never changes. He is holy. His plan is always good. This means that the key to successful, God-pleasing worship is still the same: obedience. But now we no longer need to be dependent on our own obedience, on our own righteousness, to please God! This is why Jesus came; to do for us what we were helpless to do. So worship is still dependent on obedience, but now it’s flipped. God provides obedience, through Christ, on our behalf. This obliterates pride. I didn’t do it, Jesus did. It annihilates guilt. Jesus has given hope to the hopeless and rest for the weary.

Now when we enter into the presence of God, because of, and through Jesus, God is pleased with our worship! This does not mean we ought to fall into immorality because Jesus will pick up the slack. This cannot be the case. The reason? Because now that Jesus has accomplished full obedience on our behalf, and we are given access to the Father who is pleased with our worship, we will be transformed in His presence. Like Isaiah, an encounter with the living God is a life changing, life cleansing experience. Our hearts are changed because true, God-pleasing worship always leads to sanctification.

Now that Jesus has turned the key and opened the door, giving us access to God in worship it certainly doesn’t mean that we revert back to our own standards of righteousness. That would be like thanking Jesus for letting us in and then leaving him at the door. Then we’re left wondering why our worship is bland, boring, lifeless, ugly, and ineffective. We sense that God is not pleased, so we return to the Bible, like the good Protestants we are, rediscover the key to God-pleasing worship is obedience and because we assume Jesus is cool just being the gatekeeper we try to jumpstart our worship with more of our own obedience, fueled by our perceived ‘righteousness’. But God is still holy and without Jesus all of your obedience is like filthy rags in his sight. If God sees that you left Jesus at the door to get your own groove on in worship he’ll boot you the hell out. Door slammed in your face. Flaming sword. Scary angles. All that jazz.

In my estimation this Leaving-Jesus-At-The-Door type of thinking has largely infected much of modern Evangelical thought and worship. I recall attending a worship conference and listening to a rock solid, well known preacher speaking about the subject of how worship is linked to obedience and moral living. He had every opportunity but he said nothing about Jesus’ obedience on our behalf! His reasoning is far too common: “The Bible says obedience is required for God-pleasing worship so…let’s all obey!” It makes you want to weep in sadness. That, or smash your head through a plate glass window out of frustration. To separate from Jesus, and begin operating by way of your own righteousness and obedience, well, we’re back to where we started at the very beginning. No need to call your friends, Pride and Guilt, and invite them back to the party. They already came in through the bathroom window. But God is gracious through Christ, even to dunderheads who leave Jesus at the door. The point is, don’t leave Jesus. Without him, worship is vain.

The key to successful, God-pleasing worship is obedience, just not our obedience. It’s Jesus’ obedience on our behalf.

The Gloriously Unnecessary: Stars

When Man deems, in his own estimation, that a thing is no longer practical, necessary, or convenient he will, at all costs, do his best to rid the world of it.

Evidence for this can be seen in the continual assault on the stars. Of course, no one is intentionally (as far as I can tell) trying to blot out the starry sky, but it is an assault nonetheless because Man has deemed that stars are no longer practical. What purpose do they serve for our ever increasing techno-industrialized society? We no longer need the stars for navigation; there are all manner of gadgets at our disposal for that (maps, GPS, etc). Stars are of no use as a source of light. Street lamps now light the way.

At one time the stars were heralds proclaiming the glory of God. At their haughtiest they were even considered gods. Legends are the stuff of stars. But science has demystified all of that hasn’t it? The ancients wrapped the stars in a cloak of mythology. Tales of epic proportions came from the sky. Now nerds in white coats drone on about “dead light” and balls of gas and in the name of discovery and advancement have achieved a greater evil than any primal pagan; they have stripped the sky of Awe. Though the pagan was wrong in worshipping the stars, he was more right than the scientist. At least when the pagan looked up his breath was taken away. Modern Man yawns, or squints, since he’s been raised in a land that attempts to wash away the starry host, night after night, with all of the practical, necessary, and convenient things like street lamps, billboards, and sky scrapers.  C.S. Lewis was on to something when he condemned modern man for rejecting the word “heavens” and replacing it with “space”.

But to say that an impractical thing is good doesn’t mean that the practical thing that replaced it is bad. In fact, our practical inventions like navigation systems have freed the stars from their ignoble task of “directions”. If stars are only viewed as “directions” then they are being enslaved to practicalism (rather than assaulted as an enemy as they are now; when the beast is no longer useful, put it out of its misery). I for one, prefer Mapquest over the stars. However, just because a practical invention negates the use of stars in a particular way, rendering it “unnecessary” does not mean Man should war against it (though he will). Stars are unnecessary to Modern Man, but they are gloriously unnecessary.

In this sense the stars have been liberated, set free from their task masters. They have been released from bondage and precisely because they are unnecessary to Modern Man, they are now in the greatest position to fulfill their God-given mission; to proclaim the glory of God. And now that the stars have regained their rightful place, Man’s assault on the stars is all the more telling. The attempt to blot out the heavenly bodies is really an attempt to blot out the Heavenly altogether. The stars are screaming out the beauty, the glory, and the wonder of God and in response Man is holding his ears firmly shut shouting, “I can’t hear you!” So the faint, seldom seen stars glimpsed above the city lights pronounce “Woe!” (which is still the glory of God).

I work in the city and live in the country. Each night after work around eleven o’clock, as I’m heading to my car I look up and see a dark hazy sky, tinged with yellow city lights. One or two stars have been crafty enough to shine through. As I make the journey home the sky gradually begins to expand and grow darker. And mile after mile the stars multiply and shine brighter. Somewhere at the tail-end of the suburbs, just a few miles past the electric madness of the car dealerships, I take a right and the sky explodes. The trek from urban to rural is a cosmic experience.

The Gloriously Unnecessary has just punched me in the gut and sucked the air from my lungs. I’m forced to look up. I have no choice. I’ve even pulled the car over just to look. The jungle of street lamps and illumined advertisements I just drove through cannot rightly be called ‘light’ anymore. They’re cheap knockoffs. They point me in the wrong direction. They point me to the glory of Man. The stars, though—the rightful light—have drawn me in. As they led the ancient ships in ages past they will not fail in pointing me in the right direction. They point me to the glory of God. It is in moments such as this when Man tastes that which is truly necessary.

April: Amazing Grace

"'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."

　

Amazing Grace is undoubtedly the most recognizable hymn of our day. Some might wonder why such a well known hymn would be included for memorization. Doesn’t everyone already know the song? The first verse perhaps, but what about the 4th verse? No, not the one that starts, "When we've been there ten thousand years", I'm talking about the original 4th verse (and 5th and 6th verses for that matter). Most people have never sung the remaining original verses to the well known tune. But more than just singing unfamiliar verses, this song was selected because of the profoundly simple, yet powerful way it conveys the overwhelming reality of God's grace in the life of a believer.

From this hymn we see just how dependent we are on the grace of God. In verse one we see that it is grace that saves us. In the second verse we see that it was grace that brought us to our realization that we are under judgment (it taught our hearts to fear) and yet grace is the very thing that releases us from that judgment which makes it so very precious. The third verse shows us that God’s grace has carried us through every hard time and it will continue to lead us; grace has been, and is, enough. The following three verses then focus on how grace affects the remainder of our lives. We are amazed by God’s perfect protection and provision, we are amazed how, even in the face of death grace gives us the ability to live it in joy and peace, and we are amazed that even though the world as we know it will pass away, God’s promise of grace will still remain. Amazing grace, indeed!

Find more information about "Amazing Grace" and John Newton at:

Wikipedia | Cyberhymnal | The John Newton Project | Desiring God 

Listen

Amazing Grace by Rich Tuttle

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear,

The hour I first believed!

John Newton

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come;

’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

The LORD has promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease,

I shall possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

The sun forbear to shine;

But GOD, who called me here below,

Will be for ever mine.

Words: John Newton (1725-1807)

Music: American Folk Tune

For 10 months in 2012 our church will be memorizing hymns together. For more information about this click here.

March: In Christ Alone

"Here in the death of Christ I live"

There is no doubt, "In Christ Alone" is perhaps the best hymn written in the last few decades. No other modern song comes close to the clarity and imagery in telling of the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ while at the same time masterfully weaving the impact and implications of what God has done for us. The beautiful tune fits the lyrics like a glove. It's simple and soaring.

Because of the deep resonating truth contained in the lyrics one can sing this song in any season of life. The main reason is because nearly every line is a giant arrow pointing away from ourselves and towards Jesus.

Find more information about "In Christ Alone" and the hymnwriters at:

Gettymusic | Stuart Townend | Wikipedia | Crosswalk

Listen
In Christ Alone by Rich Tuttle

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found;

He is my light, my strength, my song;

This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

"In Christ Alone"
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

For 10 months in 2012 our church will be memorizing hymns together. For more information about this click here.