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Hymns as Songwriting

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Katy Stenta is curating a series called “Worship Outside the Box” that looks at the elements of worship in new ways and contexts. Each post will focus on one particular part of worship, providing new insights about how we can gather to worship God. Today’s post serves as a hymn. What are the ways you worship God in your own community? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Drew Wilmesherr

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright, “American Hunger”

Songwriting is as much a passion/calling as it is a craft. Sometimes the lyrics are a jazzed up kangaroo, ready to burst out of the writer’s head and into the listener’s ear. Sometimes the lyric is a sedated panda, heavy, unyielding, and difficult to move forward. But catching rainwater of lyrics, when you have the right tools available, can be refreshing and life-giving without drowning in a blunt force flood of clichéd metaphors.

I love a fresh metaphor in worship music. John Mark McMillan writes in his song, “Baby Son,”

The inn is full, the out is dark
Have you no room inside your heart?

What a beautiful line to communicate so much! There’s clever wordplay of “in” and “out” and the space to fill in who we’re allowing in and who we’re locking out.

Or William Matthews’ gracious articulation of a faith journey through grey areas of life and faith, “In the Grey”:

The place, the place, where I love you in the mystery
and you rewrite my history in the grey

There’s honesty and encouragement to sing this as a community of faith, like Jeremiah or Lamentations, to say I have no clear black and white answers, but I still love you.

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.” – Orson Scott Card

Pat Pattison (lyric and poet professor at Berklee College of Music) defines metaphor as “… a collision between ideas, one crunched into another…” (Songwriting without Boundaries). Basically, all of corporate worship songs are a metaphor. We’re singing about the Indescribable Divine using the limited language of our even more limited experiences. Having just finished the Christmas season, we probably sang songs about inn keepers without any room for parents with a newborn baby. Even though there are no surly innkeepers in the Gospels, it’s still a great metaphor for the way we treat people even today at our borders, or even the way we allow the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to take up residence in our head and heart. It’s a relatable metaphor, because we can imagine a full hotel on a long journey, or even simply being turned away from a full room.

I love co-writing metaphors for songs, especially with people who have lived through experiences different from my own. They bring fresh language for common experiences, and sometimes they relate uncommon experiences through very relatable images. I once co-wrote a worship song with a hip-hop artist who was using a lot of club and party imagery as a prophetic vision of the Isaiah mountain in Isaiah 2. Peace and abundance in the language of thumping beats and full dance floors. In the book How to Rap by Paul Edwards, hip-hop artist Immortal Technique explains, “Hip-hop was born in an era of social turmoil and real economically miserable conditions for the black and Latino people living in the hood of America, so in the same way that slaves used to sing songs on a plantation about being somewhere else – that’s the party songs that used to have.”

When we engage in worship songs beyond our hymnals (as extensive and deep and wide as they are), we hear the experiences of our common God through the uncommon and current languages of our brothers and sisters who might not occupy our pews with us on Sunday mornings. When we sing the songs of others, we breath and speak as they do, and find ourselves connected in our art. And I usually find a dialogue taking place between groups of people where bridges might not have been before.

“Sing to the LORD a new song, because God has done wonderful things!” Psalm 98:1 (CEB)

Singing a new song, as Psalm 98 instructs, gives us a glimpse into the way God works in the world, the way God addresses our fears (like desiring an escape from poverty). Let’s write our songs, let’s sing the songs of others, and let’s find God in the lives of those living beyond our walls.

For more resources on lyric writing, see Pat Pattison’s Writing Better Lyrics: The Essential Guide to Powerful Songwriting.


Drew Wilmesherr is a Top 40 Mashup of West Virginia and Mississippi. He was designed and made in Atlanta, Georgia. He’s made of collard greens, guitar strings, 808 drums and stories about Jesus. He went to Middle-Tennessee State University (go Blue Raiders!), where he studied English and Recording Industry Management. In between classes and projects, he attended the Presbyterian Student Fellowship at MTSU, making lifelong friends, leading worship (the guitars and synthesizers kind), and discovering a passion for ministry and the person of Jesus. He recently graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity. And if you get him started on what the future might look and feel like, you have to let the jukebox play the whole song out (he won’t stop talking about it).

A Community Knit Through Song

This month, our blog series is actually a vlog series – a video blog, that is! We’re calling it “The NEXT Few Minutes.” Over the next several weeks, we’ll share with you short, 2-3 minute videos from a variety of folks around the country with the hopes they spark your own imagination. We hope you’ll learn about some trends, ask questions, and think deeply about the practice of ministry in your own setting.

Eric Wall, assistant professor of sacred music and dean of chapel at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, reflects on the role of music in church. What do you believe God is doing through song? Join the conversation by commenting on this blog post or on our Facebook/Twitter pages!

To see all of our videos in our “The NEXT Few Minutes” series, check out our playlist on Youtube.

A Whisper of Hope

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This fall we’ve asked a number of leaders to respond to the question, “What is saving your ministry right now?” We invite you to join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Lori Raible

What is saving my ministry right now? Under the veneer of the rosy-cheeked, puffed-up, perfect show? Under the wide blanket of collective anxiety and fear? Just under the surface of baby-joy? Under the frenetic pace of life as we plead with the dusty donkey to pick it a bit?

The donkey seems so slow.

I would by lying if I said it is the innocence of my children’s faces. I would be faking it if I said it is the anticipation of joy, or the expression of community as we prepare to celebrate. It would be dishonest to say it is giving and receiving.

star ornamentsOf course the collective measure of such blessings express a truth that otherwise may not be evident. But right now, in this moment, it is a desperate hope that saves my ministry. A hope that the promise of the incarnation is not only true, but also conjoined to the promise of the cross: Already, and not yet.

I will not leave you, ever.

The promise itself is strong enough, but sometimes my hope feels flimsy.

If we make it to the manger, will we find Job there? What about poor Jeremiah sinking in the mud? King David in his grief over the death of his son? Hannah weeping in despair for a child she cannot conceive? Guilt-ridden Peter? Lost Judas? Doubting Thomas?

I wish Herod would change his mind. Can you imagine?

Already and not yet.

This year I have no words. Trust me, this is a miracle in and of itself. Call me Zacharias, but this is the type of yearning that is better sung than spoken.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a singing voice either. What sustains me is that other people do. That’s the thing about church. When I can’t gather the courage to ‘Go Tell it on the Mountain,’ I hear choirs singing on my behalf.  Three year olds sing off-key: ‘clop, clop, clop, little grey donkey.’ Willa May Young, Ellen Harris, Joanne Cole, Ed Thomas, and Ed’s dad, Herman who is 88 at least, they make magic with Comfort, Comfort You my People.

I have no words to match the truth one hears between the notes. Between the words of those advent hymns, I hear a whisper of hope that is so deep and so profound that I am left speechless. Shamelessly I rely on a host of angels, to sing the words so I can listen for the promise of delivery in the face of what seems to be an unimaginable labor.

Still. Still. Still,

Wouldn’t that be something?

O Come. O Come Emmanuel,

My heart aches with that hope.


LRaibleLori Archer Raible is an associate pastor at Selwyn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC. A graduate from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, Lori is passionate about connecting people to one another through faith and community. Most of her free time is spent running both literally as a spiritual discipline and metaphorically to and from carpool lines. Deep within her is a writer vying for those precious minutes. 

Music and Memory: In the Bleak Midwinter

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Bonny Claxton

I serve as the Chief Financial Officer for the Rochester Presbyterian Home. In that role, I spend a great deal of time with our residents, whom we call “elders.” “Elders,” for us, is a term of respect and dignity. All of our residents are facing memory loss issues of one kind or another, including some with significant levels of dementia or Alzheimer’s.

We know from research and our experience that music is an invaluable resource for people living with dementia and those caring for them. “We tend to remain contactable as musical beings on some level right up to the very end of life,” says Professor Paul Robertson, a concert violinist and academic who has made a study of music in dementia care.

Robertson says: “We know that the auditory system of the brain is the first to fully function at 16 weeks, which means that you are musically receptive long before anything else. So it’s a case of first in, last out when it comes to a dementia-type breakdown of memory.”

We know that’s true for our elders. We recently had a music therapist come in and do an in-service for our staff, helping us to learn how to sing to and with our elders. We regularly have musicians come in and lead sing-alongs with our residents, whether family songs, patriotic numbers, hymns or Christmas carols.

Even when speech and other cognitive functions are diminishing, I have learned that music is a deep-seated form of communication and expression, reaching the deepest places of an elder when nothing else can.

Here’s one example…

As you might guess, we have regular holiday gatherings, and the Christmas season is especially meaningful at the Rochester Presbyterian Home. Many groups of youth and adults come to visit. The youth of our own congregation, Third Presbyterian Church, come in near Christmas every year to visit with our elders and sing carols.

I remember one such gathering. I have always loved the carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” (Glory to God, 144) I suggested to our song leader that we sing that carol. I was sitting next to Millie, who had lost much of her ability to use words. We began to sing, and the most amazing thing happened… Millie was quietly singing along!

She sang:

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Her spirit changed immediately as those words, and that tune – so embedded in her spirit –came pouring forth.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him –
Give my heart.

It was a special and sacred moment. Memory loss was suspended, as a lifetime of faithfulness returned abundantly.

Whether it’s singing with our children, singing with our elders, or the songs – secular or sacred – that define our own lives, music allows us to tap the deepest parts of our memory, and, in this case, draws us closer to God.


 

Annie and BonnyBonny Claxton

Chief Financial Officer

Rochester Presbyterian Home

Member, Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Susan Orr

There is a small, little worshiping community in the Presbytery of Genesee Valley named People’s Ministry in Christ. This store-front ministry is situated in a high poverty area in the city of Rochester. Set in a modest location, a former auto parts store, in fact, the room bursts its tiny seams on Sunday mornings, especially on days when a meal and fellowship are shared following worship. It’s the kind of place that reminds me how privileged I am, have always been, to live, work and play where I do. Members of this community embody the “least of these.”

People’s Ministry has been around for a number of years and so, unfortunately, doesn’t really qualify for the 1001 NEW Worshiping Communities initiative. Still, I am frequently amazed by the numerous ways this little church teaches me new ways of being the body of Christ. On Sunday mornings, a joyful noise can be heard ringing in the air. They don’t have a musician – no funds for that or hymnals sadly – so they sing along boisterously to Christian music from a CD player, lyrics projected onto a screen by an overhead projector. There’s hand-clapping, tambourine-tapping, even people dancing as they sing their glory to God.

A few years ago, I mentioned to my friends at People’s Ministry that I play the piano, not really well but enough to get by. I wholeheartedly accepted their offer to accompany their Christmas service, delighted to be able to share this gift. Jesus’s birth provides such a richness of song, does it not? We wouldn’t need hymnals or overheads, I thought. Everyone knows Christmas carols!   I was perplexed and I admit, a little ashamed when I called out a hymn – “Let’s sing Joy to the World. It’s one of my favorites! We sing it every year!” (yes, I speak in exclamation points). I was met with tentative voices from people attempting to read my lips as I sang. Do they not know this song? How is this possible? Can you be a Christian and not celebrate Christmas by singing Joy to the World after blowing out your little candle? What??

Glory to God’s introduction states: We know this hymnal will change lives. We know this hymnal will inspire the church. We know the familiar songs will sing anew.

This is what People’s Ministry does for me. They make me stop and think. Now when I worship with them, I try to be aware, at least more aware, of everything. Every song, every piece of liturgy, every testimony. To look with fresh eyes, with new eyes. To proclaim the words, not just speak the words. Or sing the words. Familiar songs, made anew.

They’ve taught me well. In the last few months, I’ve had a couple of opportunities to share the new hymnal, Glory to God, with the People’s Ministry family. On Easter, when they invited me back to the keyboard, we learned together In the Bulb There Is a Flower(hymn 250), subtitled “Hymn of Promise.” The lyrics so meaningful, so life-giving, that a parishioner exclaimed, “Let’s sing that one again!”

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;

There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.

From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,

Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

And just last month, we car-pooled from the city up to Lake Ontario so we could worship in creation and community. We read Genesis 1:1-2:4a and praised God for the glorious summer day and the ability to enjoy it with one another. This time, when we sang hymn 370, This Is My Father’s World, I wasn’t surprised the tune was unfamiliar to the gathered body. Instead, the lyrics resonated within me and were alive in a way they had never been before:

This is my Father’s world. O, let me ne’er forget

that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world. The battle is not done:

Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.

Thanks be to God!

 


 

susan orrSusan Orr

Presbyter for Mission and Education

Presbytery of Genesee Valley

A Church At Rest

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Carin Farmer

photo credit: 6315 Houck's Ridge, Gettysburg via photopin (license)

Gettysburg – photo credit: 6315 Houck’s Ridge, Gettysburg via photopin (license)

“The Church’s One Foundation” is the hymn that has haunted me for years. I first met it as hymn 333 in the old pine green 1933 hymnal. I saw the dates of the 1860s – and heard this hymn as the great cry of faith against the division and violence of the U.S. Civil War. The third verse – “’Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war, She waits the consummation of peace forever more, Till with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest, And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest” – echoed in the church of my childhood as I tried to understand what it must have been like to have Christians fighting Christians, each side’s churches proclaiming the justice of their cause.

I was wrong, of course. This hymn was written over a very different battle – one in England between two bishops. Bishop Colenso brought modern scholarship and historical techniques to his understanding of Scripture, questioning the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch and Joshua. Bishop Gray opposed Colenso’s writings and the disagreement between them became a church-wide controversy. This is the fight that inspired Samuel Stone’s “The Church’s One Foundation.” Samuel Stone feared that the fight within the church was taking the church’s eyes off Jesus, off her oneness in “One Lord, One Faith, One Birth.”

The third verse continues to haunt me and challenge me. After all, I remain part of a church that fights. I remain part of a church that is tired of fighting and is offering a discernment process, whereby churches may peaceably leave. I was quite young (age 3) during the Angela Davis controversy – and yet that was brought up to me by elders as recently as last month (despite the 45 year intermission). I was just leaving for seminary when there was controversy about women calling God “Sophia” (Greek for Wisdom) at a conference. During my years at seminary, we fought over “Amendment B” – we fought so much over it – it continued to be called an amendment, even though it was in the Book of Order. And then it wasn’t. I hear debate about abortion, Israel, and marriage, and yet I continue to be haunted by that line – “the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.”

I am seeking a church at rest. A church which hears that Jesus has said “take my yoke, learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls.” I seek a church at rest – where the dividing walls of hostility have crumbled into rubble. I seek a church resting on her one foundation in Jesus. I admit it is tempting to add “and.” I want a church at rest in Jesus AND agreeing with me politically. I want a church at rest AND matching my social and economic priorities. I want a church manning barricades of my choosing – which perhaps is all that needs to be said about why we are not a church at rest.

Nor are we “the great church victorious.” We seem to be losing ground yearly in almost every measure of money or people we use. Perhaps there are more casualties to our battles than we have counted and more damage to our foundation than we have considered. St. Paul suggests we “look not to our own interests, but to the interests of others,” or in another letter that we “outdo one another in showing honor.” The command to love one another is clear, but I love my own ways, my own thoughts, my own interpretations as well – perhaps too well. I hate to give up the fight – but that line continues to haunt me “the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.” If I want the church to be victorious, perhaps I need to learn to rest. Perhaps I need to stop adding the word “And” after the word “Jesus.” The greatest foundation ever in existence surely ought to be enough for me. This hymn reminds me to focus on the One. I need that now more than ever.


Carin

Carin Farmer

Pastor

Central Presbyterian Church

Avon, New York

We Are Walking

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Pati Primerano

I have sung in the Chancel Choir of Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester, NY, for almost 24 years. We have an amazing array of musical groups at Third Church, including five choirs, about that number of bell choirs, plus ad hoc music groups for specific events. Music has been, and will always be, an important part of my life. I served on the committee to look into the new hymnal, Glory to God, and appreciated an early look at this extensive hymnal, which we recommended for adoption, and has since been purchased, distributed and dedicated. I was impressed by the number and quality of new hymns. Some of them we have already used in worship, when a more appropriate hymn was not available in the previous hymnal.

When thinking about a particular hymn in Glory to God that holds meaning for me, that choice is different now than it would have been a few weeks ago. Having spent a week at Montreat with some of the youth from Third Church in July, I was thoroughly immersed in many hours of singing. This singing happened in a huge hall, surrounded by 1200 youth from all over, plus assorted support adults. Some of the music was written that week, specifically for week 3 of the conference, some were well-loved standards (“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” for example) and some were from GTG, which is the hymnal used in Montreat.

Anyone who’s been to Montreat will understand that the schedule is jam-packed, and it’s impossible to do everything available. One of my boys decided to sing in the evening worship choir, a volunteer group that rehearsed after lunch. I wasn’t sure if it was open to teens only or included adults, so I had my son find out for me. Since adults are included, I went to the next rehearsal with my son. They handed out copies of a hymn familiar to me already, “We Are Marching in the Light of God,” which has been sung by our Junior Choir, with the congregation joining in. This hymn is not found in the old hymnbook, but is the last hymn in GTG, hymn 853. The leader modified it to “we are walking,” and we alternated that with the verse in Zulu, “Siyahamb’ ekukhanyen’ kwenkhos.” If that looks tricky, trust me, it’s a bit tongue-twisting as well. We memorized it, as we would be singing it as we walked and clapped. This was to be the benediction response at the end of the service, and we walked from the back of the room to the front, sang a last set of verses, and then exited as we sang. We reunited outside, on the steps into the building, and sang at least four more verses, just because. For me, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my time in Montreat. The use of the hymn was perfect, memorable, and accessible to the congregation.


Pati

Pati Primerano

Member, Hymnal Committee

Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester NY

I am a retired city school district Spanish teacher, married, and the mom of three boys. My retirement gift to myself is my wonderful dog, who trains with me, learning obedience and agility. I am a member of a Dining Room Ministry team at Third Church, which serves a hot, homemade lunch every Saturday. I am an advisor in the Youth program, as well as an alto in the Chancel choir. We have a home near a popular local park, where we enjoy walking, photography and picnicking. I’m pretty busy in retirement, and honestly not sure how I managed it all while working full time…

Whole Creatures

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Laurel Nelson

“O God, in whom all life begins.” (Hymn 308, Glory to God)

This is a new hymn to me. It jumped off the page, speaking to me about God stirring the mystery of life in a worshipping community.

I write this overlooking my mid-summer garden, where the sunflowers are beginning to raise their cheery faces, tomatoes redden, and corn tassels blow in the wind. The mystery of life is no longer microscopic in this mid-season garden; life brazenly prances around.

I am twelve years into my ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. The first six of those years were spent in the garden of a congregation, and for the past six I’ve had a lot more time outside literally gardening, as well as nurturing a small nonprofit into a ministry. I look back at those equal time blocks with gratitude, for I have had the blessing of being both in the whirlwind of congregational ministry, and in a (much) less defined role as co-director of Lagom Landing (www.lagomlanding.com). In both of those “gardens” I have been a witness to God beginning life, birthing seed to fruit, blessing lives, and letting love find root (v.1).

My husband told me that if he were blogging on a hymn, he would choose hymn 15, “All Creatures of our God and King.” St. Francis beckons us “creatures” to lift up our voices and sing with brother sun, sisters moon and water, and mother earth to worship God with humble hearts.

He and I reflected on how we humans often forget our “creature-li-ness.” Being called a “creature” could be a putdown to our inflated human egos. Lost in a climate-controlled world of screens timing out our commitments and visions, we (unconsciously?) feel we are the ones in control. It can be hard to see how we are creatures when we hurry through all that is truly essential for life (meals eaten on the run, water consumed when we think of it, homes full of electronic distraction).

One of the greatest gifts of these last six years has been getting in touch with my “creature-li-ness.” I love to dig in the soil and see all that’s going on there, and even am learning to tolerate the bugs that like to gnaw on me (as a spiritual discipline in creatureliness, of course). These creaturely habits, whatever they are, return us to God’s nurture, bringing forth the Spirit’s gifts of patience, joy, and peace.

The second verse of hymn 308 speaks of uniting our minds and hands and hearts. Learning our bodies’ needs is a part of creatureliness, and a growing edge for the PC(USA). I was struck by our denominational disregard of bodies when I visited the General Assembly in June 2014. The weather was phenomenal—72 degrees, sunny, no humidity (rare in Detroit, I’m told). I was just there as an observer, so I was more freed up than those who had stressful debates to prep for and committee business to process. But it astounded me how hard we grind ourselves down in the name of business. Looooong hours, rushing through the sunshine to the dark, air-conditioned cave of the COBO Center. I know it would not have been practical or even logistically possible. Still, I wonder how getting in touch with our creatureliness by going outside, feeling the sun on our faces, and talking to our fellow creatures who had no idea who we Presbyterians are might have affected our humble openness to the Spirit connecting our minds and hands and hearts.

Especially since we were meeting in Detroit! A city synonymous with struggle and re-birth, innovation and restoration, urban gardening and edgy art! The tears and laughter, grief and joy (hymn 308, v. 3) of that city has so much to teach us about enlarging our trust and care. Reminding us that we are all community, called to risk and dare.

What happens when you claim that you are a creature?

My hope is that you get in touch with your creatureliness, deeply knowing the truth in the fourth verse of St. Francis, “Christ bears your burdens and your fears; so, even in the midst of tears, sing praises! Alleluia!”


LaurelLaurel Nelson

Teaching Elder, Presbytery of Genesee Valley

Co-Director, Lagom Landing

Turning

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Katie Styrt

“My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great.” The worship hall in Stony Point’s retreat center looks big until you crowd it with millennials. Dozens of future Young Adult Volunteers were packed in, worshiping with our fellow Presbyterians in a way that didn’t feel very Presbyterian at all. There was no stained glass, no pews cemented to the floor, and no bulletins, just us singing loud enough to shake the rafters. I’d signed up to spend a year in discernment and service, and already I was learning new things. We sang hymns brought back from other countries by past mission workers. My favorite was “Canticle of the Turning,” (hymn 100 in Glory to God) a loud, brash song.

More like a pirate shanty than a traditional hymn, the song retold the Magnificat to an Irish tune. Sung as a crowd at the top of our voices, Mary’s words sounded more like an anarchist manifesto than a virgin’s hope. “From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.” I sang it and I believed it. Soon our group would be spread throughout the world, completely devoted to fighting injustice with groups in their communities. I had spent years praying for change, without the focus to actually do something. Now I would finally get my chance.

A year went by quickly. Unsurprisingly, I was changed more than the place I served. Also unsurprisingly, I went on to seminary (if you want to feel excited about the future of the church, go be a YAV). Now I’m at my first call, a church in a stately behemoth of a building. And here, we sing the “Canticle of the Turning” every Sunday of Advent.

Our first week was an experience. Here was a song I’ve only heard on guitar and djembe, now ready to be performed on our sanctuary organ. I looked at the brick walls around us and tried to imagine this place in post-Kingdom revolution. I was surrounded by retirees and their grandkids in satin dresses. Our choir was robed up and immaculate. And then, we stood up sang about turning the world upside down.

It was perfect.

Week after week in Advent, our souls cried out. Every member of our congregation proclaimed that the world is about to turn. And we they took those words with us, out into our imperfect, stuck-in-the-mud lives.

I love singing “Canticle of the Turning,” because it reminds us how truly revolutionary Mary’s hopes for the Christ child still are today. Those big dreams and revolutionary songs fit in our solid church buildings just as much as in drum circles ; if anything, our established churches need them more. Song by song, we proclaim our allegiance to changing the world, whether it’s comfortable or not. We celebrate the dream of God’s kingdom, and admit that we aren’t there yet. The tension between our lives and God’s call resonates through us, shaking us forward to new things.

As we seek what’s next for the church we lift up these texts that demand revolution. We hold them close and cry out with joy, even when the gap between the gospel and our reality seems too far to overcome. That distance drives us to keep searching for the Spirit’s influence in our communities. Ready or not, our world turns, and we are preparing ourselves to turn it into the Kingdom of God, song by song.


katie styrt pic

Katie Styrt

Associate Pastor, Gates Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York and

Pastor, Laurelton Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York

There’s a Wideness

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. During August, John Wilkinson is curating a month of blog posts exploring where we are as a church through the lens of the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God — what are we thinking about? how are we worshiping? what matters to us? where are we headed? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

By Colin Pritchard

The disciples did not choose each other. There is no way they would have chosen each other. Fisherman, zealots, brothers, tax collectors choosing to take this kind of extraordinary, dangerous, spiritually intimate journey together? Nope. In my experience, this just doesn’t happen. People choose the company of people like themselves when the going gets tough and the road is uncertain. Each unique, passionate, and particular, the disciples made for an idiosyncratic group. The brothers had to have moments of family drama. Peter had to drive the others crazy with some frequency. Did Thaddaeus ever say anything ever? Thomas didn’t believe the others even when they told miraculous truths. Scripture lets us know that while they may have invited some of their own number to “come and see,” the disciples did not choose each other.

And yet…they were undeniably and powerfully chosen. They journeyed and witnessed, struggled and served, loved and succeeded together, brought together by the One who changed the boundaries and embodied The Word. They did not choose one another, but each was chosen by Jesus. Not the same, but each essential: all a different part of the body that would go to the ends of the earth sharing love and life, hope and the Holy.

Artwork by Shawna Bowman

Artwork by Shawna Bowman

In these modern days we individuals, seekers and followers of The Way, we the Church, continue to walk an extraordinary, dangerous, spiritually intimate journey together. We are in the privileged place of having heard our names called by Jesus and having chosen his companionship. We are just like the first disciples: needed, blessed by opportunity, gifted in our own ways. We are also just like the first disciples: with different stories and means of employment, different personalities, and certainly plenty of family drama.

We share another thing with the disciples: the road ahead remains uncertain. I am certain of this uncertainty. I am also certain that the efficacy and integrity of our witness will be profoundly impacted by how we choose to walk together. We can retreat from the challenges of broad community and its particularities and limit ourselves to our gifts alone. We can participate in the drama of trying to be just a little more chosen, a little more right, and one step closer to Jesus than our sisters and brothers. Or we can wade through the chaos with our eyes set on the One who has called us all, remembering ours is only to do our part.

I have found that the second verse of the hymn, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” (hymn 435 in the Glory to God Hymnal) can serve as a helpful reminder for us all.

“For the love of God is broader that the measures of the mind”: We love to study and debate and discern, but beyond our prodigious collective intellect, the love of God reigns.

“And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind”: So kind that the quiet ones and the zealots, the blue collars, white collars, and no collars, the broken families and the unique individuals are all wanted, needed, and guided by Grace. Christ’s kindness is a model for us all.

“If our love were but more faithful, we would gladly trust God’s word”: If we remain deeply grounded in the love of God, then we will know our assurance of both pardon and security, we will compete no more, and we will trust not just the written Word, but also the resurrected living One.

“And our lives reflect thanksgiving for the goodness of our Lord”: Who we are and how we walk together will be a worthy witness to the rest of this world. Friends we may well have not chosen each other, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we’ve each been chosen to walk together.


COlin

Colin Pritchard

Pastor

First Presbyterian Church

Victor, New York