Tag: singing

A New Song

~ Evelyn Louise ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to admit right here that the one thing that I get frustrated about at our church is that, often, when they introduce a “new song” in worship, it isn’t new to me.  I sang on the praise team at United for years and we sang a lot of stuff right as it came out on the radio.  Our leader, Colleen, was great about this.  It made it challenging at times, but so much fun.

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This picture is missing Jay on drums (he’s to the left), and Danny on guitar (where was he?) and includes a couple extra members… but still, magical

Worship at United was something that I miss more than everything else.  Being in a praise team with Danny, Jay, Thad/Jeff, Becky, Colleen, and Keith was pure magic.  Not perfect… never perfect.  But magical.  When I hear “our” songs on the radio, I cry because I’m not sure I’ll ever experience that again.  Not that God doesn’t move in my worship – he does!  But if you’ve ever been a part of a group that took your worship experience to a totally new level, you understand what I’m saying.

The whole non-new song happened again this past Sunday – and with a song that I felt was so powerful when I sang it with that team at United.  Chris Tomlin’s “Here Am I”.  The worship minister at our church introduced it so beautifully, too.  He talked about growing up a preacher’s kid and singing the old hymns…  how those hymns hold so much meaning.

Here Am I takes all six verses of “Take My Life and Let It Be” and restructures them around one of the most beautiful choruses I’ve ever heard.  It says, “Here I am. All of me. Take my life. It’s all for thee.”

The Fairmount praise team led it beautifully, but there is a beautiful backup part in that chorus… an echo of sorts… that I had the honor of singing with my old praise team and that Fairmount didn’t do.  Maybe it was because it was a new song for the congregation.  Hopefully they’ll add it in in the future, because, besides being beautiful, it helps the chorus build when it is repeated.  As I sang along with them (singing that little part softly because I needed it), I began to cry – just like I do when one of those songs comes on the radio.  I missed the feeling that I had on my praise team.  I am heartbroken that it will never happen again.  I am angry at the reasons why that will never happen again.  I am heartbroken anew by people who betrayed me, my family, my friendship and my trust.  I take these moments of hurt to, once again, turn the whole thing over to God, but obviously I have never left it completely in his care, because I am easily taken right back to that pit.  Almost always by worship songs.  Is there something ironic about that?

Anyway – I was still moping about that echo part not being sung while sitting in Bible Study on Monday morning.  We were wrapping up the study CHASE by Jennie Allen.  In our homework the week before we read Psalm 40.  Each week we read a different psalm and then answered two columns: “Who are you, God?” and “What do you want for me?”  This week, under the second column I wrote “A New Song” – taken directly from Psalm 40.  As we sat and discussed what having a new song meant in our lives, I was smacked upside the head by God. 

I need to allow God to take those “old songs” and reform them in my heart into “new songs”.  I need to stop focusing on what is different and what is lost and try to sing them anew – in PRAISE to him and not just in reflection of my loss. 

I’m not sure how easy this will be.  I told our minister back when he was preaching a series based on “Favorite Songs” that I find songs in nearly every moment of my day.  He challenged me to write about this and I started a year by year list of a “theme song” from each year.  It still has a lot of gaps where I keep meaning to go back and look at the pop charts and Christian music charts to see which songs were playing most often those years.  Anyway… I go there because it is true.  Right this moment I can sing two different songs that deal with singing a new song to the Lord. 

Nearly every interaction and every thought in my head connects me to a song from Children’s Church, Music & Drama, Blessed Assurance, an old hymn, a praise song from camp, and so on.  I sing in my head all day long… and I need to let God take all those songs that connect me to old feelings of hurt and write them fresh on my heart.

Some songs this may not be possible with… and maybe I don’t want God to soften the blow that they bring.  “I Can Only Imagine” brings to mind my grandpa because I sang it at his memorial service.  (I also sang “Find Us Faithful”, but you don’t hear that on the radio).  “I Will Rise” makes me think of Amanda, my friend who died of cancer leaving behind a loving husband and adoring 3-year-old son.  Because I feel like sharing: Easter was shortly after her death and Colleen picked I Will Rise as our song to sing as a special for Easter.  The moment I heard it for the first time, it immediately tied me to Amanda because her scripture during her fight was Isaiah 40:29-31.  I listened to it over and over, trying to help myself box away my sadness so that I could sing it with the praise team without breaking down on stage.  It might have been our Easter special music, but we continued to sing it as a congregation.  The chorus of the song says: “I will rise when he calls my name. No more sorrow, no more pain.  I will rise on eagle’s wings.  Before my God, fall on my knees, and rise.  I will rise.”  Each time I sing it, it becomes easier, but even now – almost five years later – I cry when I hear it.

I don’t think I want to disconnect Amanda from that song, but Amanda is not a hurtful memory.  Losing her was hurtful, but I draw strength from my memory of her.

No, I think God wants me to really give the songs to him that bring negative thoughts and negative memories.  Psalm 40 even references the pit that I go back to with those songs:

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.

Oh God, let me have only hymns of PRAISE to you in my mouth and my MIND. 

Let me release my old songs and learn them fresh.

Or, Let me find ways to take those songs and worship you anew with them. 

There is a reason you are presenting them to me as “new songs” – help me follow YOUR lead.

Give me a NEW SONG!

One of us

~ Evelyn Louise ~ 1 Comment

If you know me, you won’t be surprised by the fact that I sing to my children at bedtime.  In the past six months, I’ve been using old hymns as well as our traditional family lullabies… In the Garden, Tell Me The Story of Jesus, and so on…

In the last month, I’ve used all traditional Christmas songs – Away in the Manger, Silent Night, The First Noel, O Come All Ye Faithful – and thanks to our music minister, Tracy Thomas, I’ve kept Tell Me The Story of Jesus in the mix… afterall, the first verse says, “Tell how the angels in chorus, Sang as they welcomed His birth, ‘Glory to God in the highest! Peace and good tidings to earth.'”

The last couple of nights, I’ve added a favorite from an old Christmas musical called “Forever Christmas” (copyright 1984) by Don Wyrtzen and Phil and Lynne Brower.  My mother directed this musical at Parham Hills when I was young and I have remembered this song since then.  If they did it the year it came out – 1984 – then I was only 6 years old and it burned itself into my young brain.  I also remembered the story the narrator (who I am sure was David Felts, though it could’ve been Lewis Southworth) read.  Here is the story:
One blustery Christmas Eve, a young father sat all alone in front of a roaring fire.  As was his usual custom, his wife and children had gone without him to the candlelight service at church.  It wasn’t that he was especially antagonistic about the whole thing, he just didn’t see any sense in it… and so there he sat!
All at one there was a commotion outside the big picture window.  A small flock of sparrows seeking shelter, and attracted by the light of the fire, were repeatedly flying against the glass.  Helplessly he watched as the exhausted little creatures began falling one by one into the new snow.  Suddenly he had an idea, and grabbing his coat he headed for the nearby barn.  Quickly, he flung open the doors, turned on the lights and started coaxing the birds to warmth and safety.  But, to his dismay, his efforts only frightened them further till finally, in defeat, he turned back to the house.  “If only I could make them understand!” he thought.  “If only I could become one of them I would gladly lead them to safety.”
Just then, in the distance, he heard the church bells as they began to ring in Christmas.  Each chime seemed to be echoing his words, “One of them… one of them… one of them.”  All of a sudden he understood.  There was reason in Christmas!  Christ has come to earth to become one of us to that He might lead us to eternity.  Dropping to his knees, there in the snow, he opened his heart to this One who loved him so.  And, for the first time in his whole life, it was Christmas!

And then the song begins…

Silent Night, Holy Night
All the World is calm, all the stars so bring –
Did it happen on a night like this?
Do you think the angels reminisce
seeing Mary as she gently kissed the newborn King?
One of us, the Holy Child was born,
He became one of us on Christmas morning;
The wonder of it all that in a manger stall
That night in Bethlehem God became a man!
One of us, the Holy Child was born,
He became one of us on Christmas morning;
He became one of us, one of us, On Christmas morning, morning.
One of us, the Holy Child was born,
He became one of us on Christmas morning;
The wonder of it all that in a manger stall
That night in Bethlehem God became a man!
One of us, the Holy Child was born,
He became one of us on Christmas morning;
He became one of us, one of us, On Christmas morning.
He became one of us!

Now… without the accompanying music, it loses a bit of the effect (but just a bit).  The timing and inflection is what made the song stick.  It is a simple song without much change in the lyrics and yet it is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard in my life.

But the story and the words are so applicable… even now, in 2013, nearly 30 years later.

It is because God’s Story is timeless.  The fact that Jesus become a man to save us never grows old.

I struggle with sharing this with unbelievers at times.  I want the music in a portable player so that I can just read the story and sing the song to everyone I know who doesn’t believe and follow God.  But, even with the story before the song, I’m not sure I can convince people of how much God loves them and wants them to be with Him eternally if they aren’t willing to open their hearts to the message.

But, oh, how I love The Message… and oh how I love the way this story and song presented it.  I need to remember not to reserve this story and song for Christmastime – even though that is when it resonates in my head the loudest.  (It was in a Christmas musical when I was 6.)

And I want to go back to Tracy using Tell Me The Story of Jesus in one of our Christmas worship services this December.

Here are the first & last verses of that hymn:
(And yes, I am sitting at the computer with an actual hymnal in my lap… I am a church music nerd and proud of it)

Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.
Tell how the angels in chorus,
Sang as they welcomed His birth,
“Glory to God in the highest!
Peace and good tidings to earth.”
Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

Tell of the cross where they nailed Him,
Writhing in anguish and pain;
Tell of the grave where they laid Him,
Tell how He liveth again.
Love in that story so tender,
Clearer than ever I see;
Stay, let me weep while you whisper,
“Love paid the ransom for me.”
Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

The story I want to tell this Christmas – and every day of my life – is that Jesus came to earth, becoming ONE OF US to lead us to the safety that is Heaven.  I want my children, my extended family, my friends, and the strangers that I come in contact with to know this story.  I’m not good at witnessing, but God has laid it on my heart to be better.  Witnessing with my actions alone is no longer good enough – I must witness with words… because I am more than “a good person”.  I am a God person.

And what if it isn’t true?  Ah… that is an argument for the ages.
What if the Bible IS just a story?
What if Jesus WAS just a great teacher?
Well, my daddy once said that even if it turned out that all he believed, all that he lived for, turned out to be false- then he could still look back on his life with not one regret for living it as the truth.  Believing in God, in the Bible, in Jesus – and following in Jesus’ footprints will only lead us in a way of light…
But I believe it 100%.

Thank you, God, for becoming one of us…