September 9, 2012 - 10:45am Worship Songs

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Click on the songs below for an iTunes link, where you can purchase the artist's original recording.

• Here and Now (Eddie Kirkland/North Point Ministries)
• God You Reign (Lincoln Brewster)
• You Know Me (Steffany Frizzell/Bethel Music)
• While We Sing (Leeland)
• By Our Love (Christy Nockels)

September 9, 2012 - Song Spotlight

You Know Me

     Bethel Music, the worship ministry of Bethel Church (Redding, CA), released the live worship album The Loft Sessions in early 2012. Included on the album is emerging worship artist Steffany Frizzell’s song “You Know Me.” When asked about the song’s genesis, she said, “I was talking to the Lord and it came out, and I started singing,‘You have been, and You will be.You have seen, and You will see. You know when I rise and when I fall, when I come or go,You see it all,’ and that's how it came out. This declaration came from down in the depths of hurting but was also something hopeful. I feel comfort that God knows everything about me.” 

     While the verses draw upon Psalm 139 for inspiration, the song’s chorus eschews complicated lyrics in favor of simpler, repeated “whoah’s”. Explaining this choice, Frizzell said,“There's something in this season of worship where ‘whoah's’ are a groaning that words can't express that we read about in the Bible. I don't always have words, but this is my heart's cry to God.“

September 9, 2012 - Hymn Spotlight

When the Church of Jesus

     British Methodist minister and hymnist Fred Pratt Green (1903 - 2000) wrote over 300 hymns, penning most after he retired from circuit ministry in 1969. Green’s hymns have appeared in North American hymnals more often than the hymns of any other twentieth century hymnwriter since 1975. United Methodist church music scholar Michael Hawn recently suggested that Green might even be worthy to be called the successor to the prolific Methodist hymnist Charles Wesley.

     The scriptural inspiration for Green’s hymn When the Church of Jesus comes from James 2:14-17. Written early in his hymn-writing career, Green wrote this hymn in 1968 for the stewardship campaign of Trinity Methodist Church in London. The hymn text challenges churches to connect with and care for not only those within the church, but also all who pass by the church doors unnoticed or ignored. The hymn closes with a plea to Christ: “teach us, dying Savior, how true Christians live.”

September 2, 2012 - 10:45am Worship Songs

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Click on the songs below for an iTunes link, where you can purchase the artist's original recording.

• Here and Now (Eddie Kirkland/North Point Ministries)
• 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) (Matt Redman)
• Made to Worship (Chris Tomlin)
• Your Love is Moving (Christy Nockels)
• Live Like That (Sidewalk Prophets)

September 2, 2012 - Hymn Spotlight

The Summons (Will You Come and Follow Me?)

     John Bell (b. 1949), a hymnist and Church of Scotland minister, serves as a modern- day troubadour of Scotland’s Iona Community - an intentional faith community founded on the Island of Iona (western Scotland). Bell joined the liturgically-innovative community in 1980 because it was “a place where the potentials of the socially marginalized as well as the socially successful would be attested.” In the decades since, he has composed songs for and guided the music and worship publications of the Community. Bell believes the purpose of singing is to fully engage people in the congregation’s song, stretch their faith, and encourage them to live for justice.

     The Summons, Bell’s most famous hymn, was first published in 1987. The text challenges with thirteen questions as Christ summons us to a radical Christianity - to leave yourself behind and risk the hostile stare, set the prisoner free and kiss the leper clean, and to use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around.

August 26, 2012 - 10:45am Worship Songs

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Click on the songs below for an iTunes link, where you can purchase the artist's original recording.

• 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) (Matt Redman)
• You Are My Vision (Rend Collective Experiment)
• Better is One Day (Matt Redman, performed by Charlie Hall & Passion Band)
• Have Your Way (Elizabeth Hunnicutt)

August 26, 2012 - Hymn Spotlight

Forward Through the Ages

     American minister and hymnist Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) wrote the hymn Forward Through the Ages in 1908 for the installation of a minister at the First Unitarian Church in Berkeley, California. Hosmer’s aptitude for poetry was apparent at a young age, but most of his hymns were written after he turned 40 years old. At 78 years of age, 50 of his hymn texts were published in the hymn collection The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1918).

     United Methodist Hymnal editor Carlton R. Young described Forward Through the Ages as a “turn-of-the-century, forward-looking social gospel hymn.” Christian unity and the promise of God’s perfect kingdom are proclaimed throughout the stanzas and in the repeated refrain. The text is typically paired with the hymntune ST. GERTRUDE, better known for its pairing with the text Onward, Christian Soldiers.