Hymn Festival on Apostles' Creed

Following please find the program of a hymn festival I conducted at a small Baptist church on Sunday night. They let me pick the theme. Vividly in mind were all our recent conversations on the creeds, so I chose the Apostles' Creed and told how it related to early baptisms.

You know, every time we do a hymn festival, concert, or service for a small church, we have a choice about how much work we put into it. Nothing, of course, can ever be perfect, so there comes a point at which we have to call it "good enough." But balancing that there should be an attitude of reckless joy, of pouring perfume on Jesus' feet, of giving our very best for whom some may consider the very least--in this case, people who love Jesus but don't know much about the history of hymnody.

In choosing this program, I also tried to balance hymns from their own Baptist hymnal with unfamiliar tunes (most drawn from an Episcopal hymnal), both to show how the congregation's own heritage depicted themes from the Apostles' Creed and to expose them to some delightful material and fresh perspectives.

Another thought was to vary congregational with solo music; sung music with played music; and speaking with singing. On "For All the Saints," for example, I asked the congregation to keep their hymnals closed. I taught them just the refrain ("Alleluia, alleluia!") and then read the stanzas as a poem, with the congregation coming in on each refrain. (I did get carried away and sang the last stanza; irresistible.)

After each section, the congregation was instructed to declare the quoted part of the creed when I gave them a downbeat, like choir and choir conductor. After the resurrection, the congregation led ME in speaking the quoted part, while I responded with the appropriate music; they heard that it symbolized their authority because of the restoration of the image of God.

A further use of symbolism in this service was to have the congregation sit during the stanzas of "I Am the Bread of Life" and rather aerobically stand whenever they sang the refrain--"And I will raise them up...."--to show their belief and hope in the resurrection.

Enjoy.

#20 Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
st. 1 and 2—soloist
st. 3 and 4—congregation

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth."

* * *

#251 Of the Father's Love Begotten (DIVINUM MYSTERIUM)
st. 1—congregation
3 middle stanzas—soloist
st. 2—congregation

"I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord."

* * *

Tell Out, My Soul, the Greatness of the Lord! (WOODLANDS)

"He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary."

* * *

Beneath the Cross of Jesus, arr. Ken Medema
As Jacob with Travel Was Weary One Day (JACOB'S LADDER)

"He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried."

* * *

1 Peter 3:18-20

Psalm 139:7-8
Leader: "Where can I go from Your Spirit?"
Congregation: "Where can I flee from Your Presence?"
Leader: "If I go up to the heavens…"
Congregation: "You are there."
Leader: "If I make my bed in the depths…"
Congregation: "You are there."

Ephesians 4:7-10 (Psalm 68:18)

"He descended into hell."

* * *
Lord of the Dance (SIMPLE GIFTS)

"The third day He rose again from the dead!"

* * *
"He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead."

At the Name of Jesus (KING'S WESTON)

* * *

"I believe in the Holy Spirit."

Le Soir, Reinhold Glière
O Breath of Life (SPIRITUS VITAE)

* * *

"I believe in the holy catholic church."

#384 We Are One in the Bond of Love
#383 We Are God's People
st. 1—soloist
st. 2, 3, 4—congregation

* * *

"I believe in the communion of saints."

#355 For All the Saints (SINE NOMINE)

* * *

"I believe in the forgiveness of sins."

What Wondrous Love Is This, arr. Larry Shackley

* * *

"I believe in the resurrection of the body."

Christ, the Victorious (RUSSIA)
I Am the Bread of Life (I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE)
And I will raise them up,
And I will raise them up,
And I will raise them up on the last day.

* * *

"I believe in the life everlasting."

#517 Jerusalem, My Happy Home
Simple Gifts, arr. Mark Hayes

* * *

(from #449 All Praise to You, My God, This Night)
Leader: "All praise to You, our God, this night, for all the blessings of the light. Keep us, O keep us, King of kings, beneath the shelter of Your wings."
Congregation: "Amen."
Leader: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heav'nly host; praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"
Congregation: "Amen and amen!"

100 Hymns Project: The First 10

I broke my own rule.

I picked twenty-nine hymns for the 100 Hymns Project instead of waiting to memorize the first group of ten before picking the second group of ten. Sheer gluttony. Not a whit of self-control.

Oh well. That rule wasn't one of the Ten Commandments, thank God.

The first twenty-nine are all hymns that have been floating through my mind for the past months, a phrase here, a phrase there. After this, I shall become more deliberate and choose either an era, an author, or (most likely) a theme for the next group of five or ten.

Here are the first ten:

1. Like a River Glorious (WYE VALLEY)
2. This Is My Father's World (TERRA BEATTA)
3. Abide with Me (EVENTIDE)
4. He Is the Way (HALL)
5. Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL)
6. Hope of the World (VICAR)
7. How Lovely, Lord, How Lovely (MERLE'S TUNE)
8. I Bind Unto Myself Today (ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE and DIERDRE)
9. How Bright Appears the Morning Star (WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET)
10. All Things Bright and Beautiful (ROYAL OAK)

The tune names themselves are evocative. Ancient names, hidden places, old ways. I feel like pronouncing myself a Guardian of Congregational Song. Let the tradition flow through us.

Creeds of Make-Believe

This is in response to the comment left by Nan two posts ago, under "Community of Individuals." Be warned: I care very much about this particular subject, and got carried away.

***

Thank you for the detailed info, Nan!

Horrible "creed". You're correct to put it in quotation marks because it's an interpretation of a creed, rather than a creed itself. An orthodox creed (literally, a creed of "right praise") is founded on historic facts--on God's saving deeds in history--rather than on our interpretation of those facts. Interpretations change; God's deeds are set. What He does for us must always flow out of what He did; sermon, music, and prayers may direct us to what He does from the starting point of what He did, but we have lost our bearings if our creeds forget what He did. God knows where we'll end up then.

Furthermore, a guiding purpose of the creeds was to tell what God was NOT, to safeguard us from heresy, rather than to define what He was. Thus the Nicene Creed speaks of Jesus as "God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God", protecting us from the idea that Jesus is somehow less than God but not really letting us in on who God is, apart from what He does.

Your instincts are right, to question what is "not there", what has been left out. When we begin to use our creeds to define our own understanding of what God is, we risk leaving out a very important attribute. For example, in the creed you offered, in the bit about the Holy Spirit, the H.S. breathes, draws on us, encourages, exhorts, comforts, nourishes, and inspires. It sounds like an exhaustive list and suggests that it is meant to be read as an exhaustive list, but it entirely leaves out that the H.S. also judges, rebukes, reveals, glorifies God, etc., etc. Your creed's list is deceitful. It could misguide people in a number of ways.

It also insults the Holy Spirit. Usually, when people get it into their heads to make up their own creeds in order to glorify God, they end up diminishing God. That is because their creeds tend not to focus on God's saving deeds in history but on their own extremely limited understanding of what those deeds mean.

By the way, it is the same situation in marriage vows. When we make up our own words, new and fresh and unique and individual for every new and fresh and unique and individual pair, we end up shrinking the meaning of that marriage from the transcendent and universal to the mundane and particular, what it is for John and Jean, a miniature world unto themselves. It's also dangerous: people vowing magnanimously and recklessly to "always be there for each other" or to be the other's "shoulder to cry on" and "friend to laugh with" are thumbing their nose at God. The God who witnesses their vows cannot be pleased when they inevitably turn away instead of "always being there." It behooves us not to promise too much, or too little.

100 Hymns Project

One of you readers has asked for more detail on this 100 Hymns Project. Glad to oblige!

A few months ago I got tired of hearing fragments of songs flit through my mind, but being unable to recall the full text and tune of these favorite hymns. So I decided that having 100 hymns deliberately and thoroughly memorized was a reasonable goal.

Here's the strategy:

1) Choose only the first 10 hymns. Choose the next set of 10 after the first set has been thoroughly memorized.

2) Select which version of the hymn to memorize. (I usually research the original lyrics and then pick the most agreeable tune.)

3) Copy out or photocopy that version. This is helpful for (a) punching holes in the hymn and sticking it in a three-ring binder for handy review, and (b) marking recurring phrases, synonymns, alliteration--all to help me memorize and get a fuller meaning of the text. (I do this with psalms from the Bible, too, although I'm rarely so careful about photocopying them before marking up the sacred page with my own system of underlines, boxes, circles, and squiggles.)

4) Mark the date of memorization next to the title in the expanding table of contents (in the front of the three-ring binder). This not only encourages me to see the progress, but keeps me from getting too ambitious with other memorization projects, since I note I have been memorizing only about three hymns per month (starting #13 this month!).

5) Decide on some system of review. Every couple hymns, I review all the other hymns in groups of 2 to 5. The review alone takes a week or two. When I know I've missed a word or when a phrase comes too stiffly, I jot it down with the hymn title and stanza number on a piece of scratch paper. The next day, I review only those sections jotted down on the paper, before proceding to the next review group or new hymn. (I like to keep the scratch paper until the next time those hymns pop up in a review session, to see if I'm still missing the same things or if the memory gaps have changed.)

If you try this yourself, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE LOW OR NO EXPECTATIONS about how long this project will take to complete. People memorize at different rates and have different standards for how well something should be memorized, for how securely it sits in their brain. They also have varying demands on their time and varying abilites for self-motivation.

If you haven't memorized anything in years, you may want to start with 1 hymn, 5 hymns, or 10 hymns--or even 1 stanza of 1 hymn. Baby steps, darlings, baby steps.

More on the actual hymns I chose later.

Please let me know if any of you have tried this in the past, are trying this at present, or are suddenly inspired!

Contemporary Church: Community of Individuals?

One of the great ideas I took away from IWS was: there are other people LIKE ME! No kidding. You all in the blogosphere are becoming my friends, but chatting with you via our keyboards is different from worshiping with you (I would never be content with attending a church of the 'net.) From the first song--a praise chorus, "He Is Exalted"--to the closing hymn, an original text sung to the tune "Gift of Love", I felt the presence of other believers who cared not only about worshiping God but about figuring out how God would like to be worshiped.

Furthermore, they had had several years of practicing this. They were the kinds of people who say creeds and memorize songs.

Feeling ourselves part of a community is important to our spiritual balance. But we also represent something to the world, to the "rulers and principalities", and to God Himself when we are able to join our voices and gather in one place for worship. We represent something very particular when we say together, instead of in the privacy of our rooms or alone in some outdoorsy "worshipful" setting, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth...."

What do you think it means, this trend to make up our own liturgies and our own songs? Not as a devotional exercise, but as a subsitute for the historic liturgies and songs. I was intrigued by the strong reaction of one of this blog's readers, when her liturgical leadership made up some prayers again. Why are people reacting so strongly to creativity in the service? Are there good and bad kinds of creativity when it comes to worship?

IWS: Episcopalians, Anglicans, and a Flag

More than the studies, an actual worship service packed the most emotional wallop these last few days.

Friday night, Grace Episcopal Church, the host campus of IWS, became Grace Church (Anglican) in a two-hour service of disassociation from the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and a realignment with the worldwide Anglican communion under the province of Rwanda.

The tenor of the service was sober and sad, in keeping with the title “Solemn Acts of Disassociation and Realignment”, yet also gracious and full of hope. We opened with “The Church’s One Foundation”—especially poignant in the line “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed”—and closed with “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus!” in its conviction that the church will be reunited. The “songs of holy Zion [will] thunder like a mighty flood.”

The point at which I gave in to tears was when an ex-serviceman and an Eagle Scout took down the Episcopal flag and folded it in front of the altar, in preparation for this week’s delivery of the flag, church registry, and account book to the Episcopal diocese. I wasn’t a member of the church; I’m not even Episcopalian. But I suppose I identified with these people through the very particular symbol of a flag. When I’m overseas, it does my heart good to see our stars and stripes hung as a courtesy in some government building or included in some decorative scheme. A flag is a symbol of participation and belonging, and of where one’s heart resides. In the silence, seeing the Episcopal flag folded in a tight little triangle and laid like a bundle on the rail was like beholding my own secession from the United States of America.

Then, while we sang Rich Mullin’s “Step by Step,” a light blue banner of the worldwide Anglican communion was carried up the center aisle and placed in front of the lectern. It was embossed with the words, “The Truth Shall Make You Free.”

IWS: Reason and Experience

For two days I’ve been here in Jacksonville, the days booked solid with classes and meetings until 9 PM.

There are nineteen of us beginning the doctoral program, fifteen men and four women from varied denominations. We meet in a Sunday school classroom of a local church and the teachers sit to speak or stand to scribble on a blackboard with half-inch stubs of chalk. Around us rise the murmurs of other students farther along in the program, in other Sunday school classrooms. Since we’re in a Worship Studies program, I pretend these murmurs are chants and I’m sitting in a monastery—an ironic pretense since every one of the students in this “cohort” is married. But we are possibly as committed as the monks to the glory of God through the pursuit of academic studies and the renewal of His worship. It’s a good crowd.

The first day was spent with personal introductions, course overview by my professors (Lester Ruth and Andy Hill), presentation by Robert Webber on “An Ancient Evangelical Future” and his conveniently numbered 39 Articles, and oh-so-informed worship services.

The second day was spent with more worship services, communal meals, Q-and-A on issues in the Episcopal/Anglican churches in America, and two chunks of classes, morning and afternoon, on a historical overview of Christian thought (Biblical period to postmodern), ancient Biblical themes, and ways of reflecting on 20 centuries of Christian worship.

The most interesting point was that in the Modern era (1750-1950’s), Christians began to think of their faith as provable in terms of reason or experience. The rationalists set out to prove the existence of God, the physical reality of the resurrection, etc., as if faith was primarily about a set of intellectual beliefs. This led, of course, to worship services that were heavy on the preaching. The experientialists focused on the individual experience of salvation, for example, the ability to say that I was saved on such-and-such a date, which led to worship services with a strong revivalist tinge and songs like “I Serve a Risen Savior”—“you ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.”

Besides determining the structure of worship services, both of these views can lead to anxiety about one’s personal salvation: “Am I really able to believe this stuff? And do I understand enough about Christ’s work for me in order to be saved?” or “Have I really felt the love of Jesus? And do I feel loving toward God?”

Bob Webber remarked that both of these views put the burden of salvation on the individual rather than on Christ’s saving work, regardless of how we feel or whether we exhaustively understand.

Do your churches focus on reason or experience or something else? What have your backgrounds focused on? How do you think this has affected your understanding of God?

Touching Down in the Sunshine State

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a new post to come up. I ended up playing organ for eight hours on Christmas Eve--about four hours too many--which doesn't affect the hands as much as the back and shoulders. Anyway, I was very reluctant to do anything like playing the keyboard for several days--including typing for this blog!

We're going to do something a little different in this blog over the next week or two. I'm flying to Jacksonville, Florida, tomorrow morning to begin the Doctor of Worship Studies through the Institute for Worship Studies, founded by Robert Webber, guru of "Ancient-Future" worship fame.

Dr. Webber had piqued my interest when I was an undergraduate at Wheaton College and had to take some kind of History of Christian Thought class, for which he gave me a good grade but never returned my extensive notebook. I figure this three-year doctoral program will yield enough notes to make up for the loss of that notebook.

So this next week, if the campus has internet access, I'm going to be your embedded reporter and offer you some observations from the program. My husband says I should wear one of those white T-shirts that says in bold letters, "I'm blogging this," to give everyone fair warning.

However, since God comes down pretty strongly against gossipers and since I'll be working with these people for the next several years, the blog shouldn't be full of nasty little tidbits. We hope to aim for the amusing and the thoughtful instead.

See you in Florida!