This week, Josh preached from Acts 10:44-48. Our songs were gathered around the theme of the love of God. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
Your Love is Strong by Jon Foreman
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
How He Loves by John Mark McMillan
The Sun Will Warm Your Heart by Sarah Dossey Keilers
Holy Spirit by Jesus Culture
How They Fit In:
There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.
Your Love Is Strong: This song uses the Lord's Prayer to explore the ways that God provides for us out of God's abundant love. This is a love we can count on to carry us when everything else seems to fall away.
Wandering: This song explores the fact that God continues to want to be God for us even when we misunderstand our role in this relationship: we try to do things our own way--to manipulate God into giving us what we want--yet God remains faithful to us. This is a love that we can count on to carry us even when we fall away.
How He Loves: I would encourage you to go watch this video to hear John Mark McMillan talk about this song. This is a love that we can count on to be our light when everything else seems like utter darkness.
The Sun Will Warm Your Heart: I've long known Sarah to be a great songwriter, so I asked her if she would be interested in sharing one of her songs with us during the Offering. She agreed! I asked her if she would write a few sentences about what this song means to her. This is what she said:
I adapted the words for this song from a William Cowper poem that I first read just a few months ago in the book Suffering and the Sovereignty of God.
In darkness, sometimes the only light that can truly break through for me are those little spiritual nuggets of truth about God's character -- His omnipotence trumps my fear and lack of trust every time. So, during this time of some serious struggle and heartache in my life, I've found Cowper's simple and solid words to be encouraging and empowering - both upon first read, and now each time I get to sing them.
Holy Spirit: We sang this song to take a look over our shoulder at last week's songs. I would encourage you go back and read what we said about it in that post, but it has a different significance in light of Josh's sermon this week (the podcast will be up on Thursday, so be sure to listen). Because the Spirit dwells within us, we are given the chance to extend the love of God to those around us in creative and imaginative ways. When we ask that God would make us more aware of the Spirit's presence, we are asking that God would help us express the love of the living God.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM