This was the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs around the theme of our need for God, and God's faithfulness to us. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, 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 at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher
Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon
For Those Tears I Died by Jameson McGregor
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
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.
All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to begin our time together acknowledging our interconnectedness with all of creation through our mutual praise of God. This song was born out of the writing of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is memorable for many things, but one overarching theme of his life was an awareness of our siblinghood with creatures that are not human. He extended this familial relationship even to the sun and the moon. Every created thing bears witness to the work of the Creator, and sings a song in praise of God's sustaining work. God's sustaining work is ongoing, and we are ever-needful of it. This song allowed us to begin our liturgy by practicing the correct orientation of our attention.
Lord, I Need You: This song voices our need for God's help in all aspects of life, but particularly when it comes to doing the things that we should do. Left to our own devices, we have a tendency to disappoint--or, worse, harm--ourselves and those around us. Over time, we might find ourselves more permanently formed by the Spirit, but we never get to the point where we do not in fact need God's presence.
Up On A Mountain: This song recalls the story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, allowing us to meditate on the inner anguish he faced as the time of his death approached. The point of it is that, when faced with this horror, he was at no point interested in forfeiting the outcome of his death. He knew it was a long way down. He knew what was at stake. And now he is our advocate, and sent the Spirit to be our Comforter. Because of this, we are not alone, but are held in the mind of God.
For Those Tears I Died: I've played this song once before. It's consists of equal parts confession, despair, anger, and hope. When I wrote it, I thought I knew what tragedy it referred to, but it now points to an ever-growing list of tragedies. I recently recorded an acoustic demo of it, which you can stream here:
Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things. First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this. Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness. We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM