Tag: Worship

Dear Daughters,

A few weeks ago, our worship leader started out the service by saying

Today we’re going to sing a lot of old favorites.

In my head I’m thinking

Old equals 200 years.

Obviously, she is a millennial because the songs we sang were all around 10 to 20 years old.  I chuckled to myself because the definition of old can mean different things to different people.

The songs were wonderful, well-done and worshipful, but I found it interesting that to some, old simply means a few decades.  To others, like myself, it means a few centuries.

That afternoon I got thinking about old songs and new songs.  I remembered last winter when Grandma was dying and in Hospice care. Hospice provides spiritual support, and we were blessed with a guitar-playing, boisterous singing chaplain.

Chaplain John came to the door on a snowy December day with his guitar in hand.  Being a musician myself I was elated that he obviously loved music as well.  When he came into the bedroom where Mom lay unconscious, he sat down, opened his guitar case and passed around song sheets, Christmas carols along with old yet well-loved hymns.

For the last several days before Grandma’s death, people had come in to say their good-byes, some singing, talking or praying quietly. A few weeks prior, Grandma herself one day started singing

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.

I joined in, singing along with her.  I think she knew her time was short and was comforted by this simple but profound song.

Awhile back I was teaching piano in Michigan, and I had a twenty-something student starting out as a beginner. She had recently become a Christian and wanted to start learning to play on the piano some songs she had heard in church. She attended a contemporary-song-singing church and loved the songs that were used in worship.  One week she came to her lesson so excited about a beautiful new song she just learned last Sunday, Amazing Grace, and wondered if I could find the music for her.  (This was before the time of musicnotes.com).  She was surprised to hear that Amazing Grace was 250 years old, but it brought her great joy as she learned to play and sing it.

I started thinking about old songs and new songs the other day, and how the old songs seem to be fading away in many churches.  Then I wondered: when millennials become senior citizens and begin to die, what songs will their friends and family sing at their bedsides?

Thinking of some of the recent popular Christian songs I wondered how we could sing Oceans, My Lighthouse, Breathe, 10,000 Reasons, Break Every Chain at someone’s bedside, not having a worship band backing us up.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love these songs, I sing, play and listen to them often, but they are rather difficult to sing acapella or as a small group with only a guitar. I am a worship leader and love learning all the new songs, but the older I get the more I wonder if we are robbing our younger friends of those old, timeless hymns of the distant past.

There is something secure, bridging the generations, with the ageless hymns of our history.

I attended worship a few years ago in Chicago.  It was a mega-church, wonderful worship band on stage, and an outstanding message on faithfulness and commitment in marriage. The song immediately following the message was Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, a hymn over 200 years old.  I was rather surprised at this choice because the rest of the service had been newer songs.  When we got to the fourth verse the words

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

surprised me, not only because it fit so well with the message, but simply because it was a beautiful song.  The song begins with the words:

Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy praise.

Tune my heart – what a beautiful word picture.  We tune guitars, pianos and other instruments all the time with hi-tech tuners, but tuning our hearts?  That’s a lot tougher to do because it takes time – thanksgiving, confession, and alone time with God – all those good quiet disciplines that we often neglect.

It’s much easier to tune our hearts to what’s wrong with our husband, what’s wrong with our kids, all the unfairness in the world, or how you have been wronged. I’m continually trying to tune my heart to count my blessings, to give thanks in all things, but it is hard work.  The battle of the mind is relentless.    Sometimes words come out of my mouth that I didn’t even realize were in my mind.  But they were probably in my heart.

I’ll continue to enjoy the new songs, but I hope we don’t abandon the old faithful sung-through-the-centuries songs that are remarkably up to date.  Maybe that’s because people struggle with the same emotions, the same sin, the same hearts that need a tune-up every day of our life.

Love, Mom