This week was the first week of Advent, and our songs were gathered around the theme of hope. 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 at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
Deliver Me by David Crowder* Band
Rescue Is Coming by David Crowder* Band
Hope (There Will Come A Light) by Jameson McGregor
Make This Go On Forever (Refrain) by Snow Patrol
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.
Deliver Me: It can be difficult to think/sing about hope without naming any of the circumstances that would demand the looking-foward that comes with hope. This song was intended to open our time together with a hint of tension; a pleading for deliverance. While it provides few specifics we might categorize as the things from which we need saving, it does give us the chance to say at least 6 times, "I know that You're the One to pull me through." The Christian hope, the Advent hope, is not a vague kind of hope--it is a hope singularly focused on the faithfulness of God.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: We sang this song to move from a plea for deliverance, and the acknowledgement that God is the One who is the object of our hope, to asking that God would come and save us--to enter into the darkness we call home and flood it with light.
Rescue Is Coming: We sang this song to put hope into our mouths, proclaiming that rescue is coming. This is a hope we can shout, but its also a hope we can live in--one we can carry with us without having to escape our every day lives. It's a hope that allows us to keep moving.
Hope (There Will Come A Light): I wrote this song a couple of years ago for the first week of Advent. A few months ago, I wrote songs for all the other weeks, too, so we will sing the whole series of songs over the next few weeks. I recently recorded some video sessions of these songs with some friends in Austin. The video for this song has been posted here.
Make This Go On Forever (Refrain): We attached this brief refrain to the end of the offering song because it seems to sum up the longing of advent exceptionally well.
Be Thou My Vision: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Be Thou My Vision then: We sang this song for a couple of reasons. First, we sang it to find language to offer along with the people of our congregation who shared their stories with us this week, asking for God's wisdom and presence with us. Second, we sang it to offer the words of the final stanza in light of Christ the King Sunday.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM