5-19-24 Music

Happy Birthday Church! Eastertide is now behind us as we celebrate Pentecost, and tell that wild story of tongues of fire, Star Trek’s universal translator, the founding of the Church, and where our friend Peter swears we can’t be drunk because it is only 9 in the morning. [2] Musically, we will celebrate with an anthem sung by our lower voices (tenors and basses who don’t normally sing with us, it's not too late, I’ll be glad to teach it to you Sunday morning and have you join us), and a mix of hymns old and new. There is a hilarious group of “digital monks” that go by the online moniker of “Unvirtuous Abbey.” One of their traditions is posting pictures of birds with some attitude, and tagging the Holy Spirit 😂. Today's header image comes from that tradition.

Our opening hymn comes from our Presbyterian friends. Janie Alford (1887-1986) was a layperson and poet, who was encouraged to write hymns by her Music Minister, none other than Hal Hopson! May your own Music Minister be so encouraging. She builds on a foundation (pun intended) of other hymns celebrating Christ as the cornerstone of the church, like The Church’s One Foundation (Chalice Hymnal, 272) and How Firm a Foundation (CH, 618). We will sing her hymn, Come, O Spirit, Dwell Among Us, using the classic hymn tune, HYFRYDOL (Come, O Long-Expected Jesus, CH125, cf 233, 450, 688). You can see the hymn below:

Rather than have instrumental or choral music while we take up the offering, we will take the opportunity to sing three classic Holy Spirit songs. Spirit of the Living God (CH 259) will start us off. You will recognize the heart of Daniel Iverson’s (1890-1977) words as the potter’s prayer Courtney often recites as she is preparing to preach, “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.” This is slightly different from older editions, which began with “Break me,” and did not conclude with “use me.” This language, while perhaps apropos for an artist using recycled materials, is maybe less useful as a metaphor for God who does not need to break us down to build us up (though certainly can melt and mold us after the world has broken us to pieces). We will follow that by singing Edwin Hatch's (1835-1889) Breathe on Me, Breath of God (CH 254) and Doris Akers’ (1923-1995) Sweet, Sweet, Spirit (CH 261). I'll share some great recordings below.

Our last hymn is a song of church renewal. Ken Medema's anthem, Come Build a Church, is a driving work for a choir, and nearly relentless for congregational singing, but the words are always worth singing. As blessed as we are to have such a fantastic building (with great acoustics!), it is the people who are the church. “Come build a church of human frailty… Jesus shall be it's sure foundation.” Admittedly, I was a little unsure of singing multiple “Jesus is the Foundation” hymns on Pentecost, but they both drive home the interconnectedness of Trinitarian theology (sneak preview of next week).

Come Build a Church is always a great hymn to remind you of my philosophy of congregational singing. Like all parts of the church, congregational singing is the work of many, doing many different things. Some of us sing more, some of us listen more, but all of us do it together. Some of us can sing the higher notes, some of us the lower, but all of us do it together. Please, never feel like you are responsible for singing every note, your neighbors have you. Just like how our wonderful new Fellowship Commission isn’t responsible for all the fellowship, we’ve got them. When I direct choirs or congregations, and my right arm gets tired, my left gives it a break-then they come back together when the time is right. This is how a “church of human frailty” is built, and sings, strongly.

Let us sing a new church, friends,

Chris

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So many beautiful recordings for me to choose from. If you have others you wish I had shared, feel free to mention them in the Grace Baptist Facebook group, where I post a link to this blog each week. If you're not in the Facebook group, but would like to be, please let myself or one of the other ministers know so we can fix that.

HYFRYDOL on bagpipes! https://youtu.be/lCluuMx0aI8?si=FZY_IsHdqYrxQUu7

HYFRYDOL being sung by a men’s choir, in the original Welsh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkuCzsEzet8

While you are there, you should also check out the Bryn Terfel recording of Suo Gan from the same album, its phenomena. Come to think of it, SUO GAN would have been a lovely tune for this text as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hjniqmZqM8

We won’t sing this arrangement, but this is a pretty powerful singing of Spirit of the Living God by a gospel choir in Chicago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z96KV4nzHgM

I don’t listen to much “Contemporary Christian,” but when I do this album by Audrey Assad is likely in the mix, including this piece which I think is a meditation on Iverson’s text. I have the sheet music for this somewhere, might pull it out sometime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6kQVeoDjAM

You can’t go wrong with Breathe on me, Breath of God/TRENTHAM on a pipe organ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdztRmv2GPk

(even if there is something about the tenor line that makes me want to mix it with the Psalm 23 setting that was the Vicar of Dibley theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-okUPHbwMJQ )

Heaven on earth may be a choir of young voices singing Breathe on Me, Breath of God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfonD5fsAwc

Back in 1994 the Gaithers got some legends together for a festival that thankfully was recorded, but they were unable to get permission to release until 2016. Doris Akers leads the congregation in singing her Sweet, Sweet, Spirit, not long before she passed away:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zJ8YeybpMQ

You can flashback to Recovenenting Sunday 2022, my first service on staff at Grace where we worshiped in the sanctuary, to hear us all singing Come Build a Church, together:

https://youtu.be/N-VKVCGhs_s?feature=shared&t=3245

Have a blessed week.

Chris

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[1] Check out the “Digital Monks,” and this original post, at https://www.facebook.com/UnvirtuousAbbey/posts/2569151376452881/

[2] Clearly, Peter has never worked a long night shift at the hospital that called for mimosas after.

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