This past Sunday was the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered with this in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
Come Alive by ubcmusic
The Word Is Yet Flesh by ubcmusic
What The Dry Years Took Away by Jameson McGregor
Pulse by ubcmusic
Yesterday was the eighth Sunday of Epiphany, and our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Crown Him With Many Crowns by ubcmusic (adapted from Matthew Bridges)
SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band
There by Jameson McGregor
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.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin our time together giving voice to the greatness of God’s activity in history.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song offered us language to speak of Christ’s greatness being rooted in his coming low and suffering among us.
SMS [Shine]: This song is a petition for Christ to continue to be the light in the darkness the darkness did not overcome, and to make us bearers of this light.
When the Saints: We sang this song to tie ourselves to those who have gone before us, and to locate our stories within a great parade of stories God is weaving together into redemption.
There: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about There then: This song celebrates God as an anchor beyond every pain we encounter.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Crown Him With Many Crowns by ubcmusic
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Hope by Jameson McGregor
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to begin our time together celebrating the reign of Christ in the Kingdom of God.
Death In His Grave: This song invited us to rehearse the story of the death and Resurrection of Christ.
All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to practice an awareness of our interconnectivity with creation under the care of our Creator and Sustainer.
Inbreaking: This song is a plea for the Slaughtered Lamb to form us in the way of Christ and form our world in the way of the Kingdom.
Hope: This song celebrates the redemptive work of Christ in the life of the world as the light in the darkness the darkness did not overcome, and grasps for the hope that one day every broken piece will find its place again.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This past Sunday was the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Pulse by ubcmusic
When the Saints Go Marching In by ??? [google for theories]
Crown Him With Many Crowns by ubcmusic (adapted from M. Bridges)
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.
Be Thou My Vision: We sang this song to begin our time asking God to transform our vision, wisdom, security, and hope.
Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.
Pulse: This song is a prayer that God would reawaken us to the interconnectivity of creation, and to teach us to love our created neighbors as ourselves.
When The Saints Go Marching In: We sang this song because of the proximity of this Sunday to All Saints day. It invites us to reflect on our location within a long caravan of people following in the way of Christ.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: This song invites us to give voice to the reign of Christ above every so-called authority, whose Kingdom is and is to come, and flips the script on our ideas of power and grandeur.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Yesterday was the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor
Recording
Here’s a demo recording of Where God Has Always Been:
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.
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to begin our time contemplating the wideness of the mercy within which we find ourselves.
Mystery: This song offers us a shorthand version of the Gospel story (Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again) as an anthem to raise in the midst of struggle, and a reminder that the way of Christ is costly.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song invites us to consider our place amongst the family of all of creation, and to offer praise to the Maker of us all.
Where God Has Always Been: This song was written while thinking through the texts from Psalms and Isaiah from the lectionary for last week. It is in praise of the Lord of all with their backs against the wall, reminding us that God has thrown in with the oppressed and forgotten of the world and rises to their defense.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: We sang this song to begin our time by singing about Jesus as Lord of everything.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This past Sunday was the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Shadow by Jameson McGregor
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to begin our time by singing about Jesus as Lord of everything.
Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.
Come Thou Fount: This song offered us language to anchor our faith in who God will be for us in who God has been for us up until this point.
Shadow: This song is about the tension between what we claim to believe and the beliefs revealed in our action.
Be Thou My Vision: This song is a petition for God to reframe our sense of vision, wisdom, security, and hope; to give us an overall different lens through which to view the world and our place in 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
Yesterday was the ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic (adapted from Ascend the Hill)
Wearing Thin by Jameson McGregor
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
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.
Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song invites us into a key pursuit of ordinary time: turning our attention toward being the presence of Christ in our time and place.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song offered us language to speak of Christ as Lord of all, and thus to orient our thoughts about power toward Jesus.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song offered us words to proclaim that our grasping after God occurs within the context of God's embrace of us.
Wearing Thin: This song is a petition for God to form us into people of zeal for justice and ignite hope in the face of hopelessness.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song invites us to join our voices with all of creation in acknowledging God as the Creator and Sustainer of all that is. In doing so, we are invited to consider all of creation as our family.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Yesterday was the second Sunday of Eastertide, and our songs were gathered with that in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor
Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to orient our attention toward Jesus as the Risen Lord, whose power is made perfect in weakness and whose reign is underscored by nonviolence and love.
Amazing Grace: As we enter Resurrection season, this song offers us language to articulate the sustaining presence of God's grace through the deaths and resurrections we experience in the course of life.
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to celebrate God's mercy and to remind ourselves that any view we hold about God's rigid wrath says more about us than it does God.
Murdered Son: This song speaks to the death of Jesus as it relates to our own deaths; namely that Christ has grabbed us and raises us with him.
Inbreaking: This song is a plea for the Slaughtered Lamb to raise hope out of brokenness and draw us into the Resurrection life.
Mystery: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Mystery then: We sang this song to proclaim Jesus' rise from death at the hands of political and religious oppressors, and raised this as a challenge for us to rise to the aid of the oppressed.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday, and the songs were selected with that in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Chariot by Page France
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song because it was basically made to be sung on Christ the King Sunday. It speaks both to a conceptual crowning of Christ in one's life, and also to a more eschatological vision of the Kingdom.
Mystery: This song proclaims the story of what kind of king Christ is--the kind that would suffer and die for his people. In singing this song, we began to pose a question to ourselves of what Christ's reign might mean for the way that we live and move in the world.
Pulse: We most often refer to the Holy Spirit as the Breath of Life undergirding all of Creation when we sing this song. But Pulse can also be taken to refer to the way in which all of Creation holds together in Christ, which is the angle we took yesterday. At the bottom of everything, we are connected to the people least like us by our mutual connection to the grace of Christ.
Rise Up: This song is a petition for the King who stands with the oppressed to rise to their defense, and a charge to those who claim to be formed in the way of Christ to do the same.
Inbreaking: This song is a plea for the coming of the Kingdom and the re-Creation of all things.
Chariot: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Chariot then: This song is a looking ahead toward the re-Creation of all things. This looking ahead in some way embodies the posture of Ordinary Time, insofar as we allow this looking ahead to motivate us to live as though the Kingdom has already come in fullness.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This was the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
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.
How Great Thou Art: This song offers us the chance to rehearse responding to the wonder of what God has made, what God has done, and what God will do, with an acknowledgement of God's greatness. In Ordinary Time, this becomes important because how we respond to this wonder is indeed a part of discerning what it means to be the people of God in our particular time and place.
Death In His Grave: We sang this song to tell again the story of Christ's entering into suffering to the point of death and emerging victorious over Death and sin. This story is the foundation of our hope, and one of the most revelatory moments regarding the lengths to which God is willing to go to set things right with us, and it is also an image of the re-Creation that God is actively working in history.
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This is a reminder that we offer ourselves and one another about God's grace and mercy toward us. We are quite adept at thinking of ways which we might be excluded from the love of God--thinking that it might be true for other people who are less flawed than we--but the truth is that the love of God is much broader than our broadest notions of this love. Aside from thinking of how this love relates to ourselves, this song also reminds us that the same is true for those who are different than us--those who we might not care much for at all. Taken together, this song offers us the opportunity to lean further into loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves (which also presupposes that we love ourselves well).
Wild One: This song seeks to remind us that who God is and who we expect God to be are not the same thing--that God is in fact greater than our greatest assumptions. This idea poses a challenge to us in Ordinary Time to continue to carry the holy curiosity of Epiphany.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: We sang this song to give voice to the lordship of Christ, with language of power-in-weakness. In doing so, we call ourselves to imagine how this self-giving savior would have us live and move in the world.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This was the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:
House of God Forever by Jon Foreman
Crown Him With Many Crowns by Jameson McGregor
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
For Those Tears I Died by Jameson McGregor
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
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.
House of God Forever: This song is essentially Psalm 23, and offers us language to express a trust in God's comforting us in the face of uncertainty.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to give voice to the lordship of Christ, with language of power-in-weakness. In doing so, we call ourselves to imagine how this self-giving savior would have us live and move in the world.
Rise Up: This song is a call for both God and our own community to rise up and defend the vulnerable.
For Those Tears I Died: This song expresses a feeling of dislocation, abandonment, and perhaps just deep pain, and puts it in conversation with Jesus' solidarity with those who suffer.
Mystery: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Mystery then: This song proclaims the story of the death, resurrection, and expected return of Christ, and offers this story to us as a cause for a transforming Hope in the midst of whatever affliction might befall us.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This was the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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 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:
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
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.
Pulse: This song is about the interconnectivity of creation--that the Spirit of Life is woven through the whole cosmos. It's also about our propensity to completely ignore this and decide instead which parts of God's beloved creation we want to consider worthy of love. It is a confession of our brokenness and a petition for God to make us new.
Death In His Grave: This song is about the defeat of Death by the Resurrection of Jesus. It stands as a reminder to us that the most fundamental existential victory has been won, and the final word about God's creation has been spoken. It is a celebratory declaration of the work of God in the world, and a hopeful proclamation that the story of creation has been rewritten.
Mystery: "Christ has died/Christ is Risen/Christ will come again" is a refrain that has been present with the Church since its inception. It is shorthand for the core of our story, and it is also shorthand for the fundamentally revolutionary roots of our faith. It is a protest anthem. Against death. Against evil. Against oppressive powers of all sorts. It says, "Not even death can silence the Hope of Christ."
Inbreaking: This song is a confession of the brokenness of the world, of the church, and of ourselves, and a petition for the Slaughtered Lamb to show us how to exit our tombs.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder from our songs from two weeks ago. This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: A central focus of Ordinary Time is on seeking to be the presence of Christ in our particular time and place--that means to seek to be formed in the way of Christ in such a way that our lives are outposts of the Kingdom. This song praises Christ as Lord, and speaks of the fact that his Kingdom is marked by peace and self-sacrificial love, thus helping us recenter on our minds on who we are called to be.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This was the ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts. 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 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:
SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Wearing Thin 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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: A central focus of Ordinary Time is on seeking to be the presence of Christ in our particular time and place--that means to seek to be formed in the way of Christ in such a way that our lives are outposts of the Kingdom. This song praises Christ as Lord, and speaks of the fact that his Kingdom is marked by peace and self-sacrificial love, thus helping us recenter on our minds on who we are called to be.
SMS [Shine]: This song is a petition for God to be present where God feels absent, and to make Godself known in love. This presence applies to us personally in the midst of our own pain and doubt, and also asks that we ourselves be made into torches that spread the Light all around us.
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about There's A Wideness In God's Mercy then: This song serves as a reminder of two things: 1) God's mercy extends to us far more generously than we think we deserve; and 2) God's mercy extends to other people far more generously than we think they deserve.
Wearing Thin: This song is about anxiety, specifically the anxiety that arises when the brokenness of the world seems far too great for us to push back against, but it ultimately serves as a petition for God to draw us in to the work of redemption that God is already doing.
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
This was the fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the selection from Psalm 145 in this week's lectionary set. 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 live recordings of a few of them from Sunday morning , 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
Crown Him With Many Crowns by Jameson McGregor
Lifted/Lifting by Jameson McGregor
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
Recordings:
From time to time, we'll post live recordings of the songs from Sunday morning. These recordings aren't what you would call polished--sometimes guitars are out of tune, sometimes the vocals are off--but they are records of moments we've shared together. Here are the songs from this week:
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 by praising God as our Creator and Lord both with our words and with an attempt at grasping for a view of other creatures as equally created and loved by God.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to remind ourselves of the lordship of the Suffering God who has drawn us to Godself by drawing near to us in Christ.
Be Thou My Vision: This song is a petition for God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope, and we sang it because this is the sort of divine-human relationship that drives the people of God out into the world to join in God's redemption project in creation.
Lifted/Lifting: This song is a plea for God to continue to develop the things we think we already know about who God is, and also to continue to form who we are more fully in the way of Christ.
Future/Past: This song was a look over our shoulder at last week's songs (I was out of town, so there aren't any thoughts from last week's post to place here).
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This week was the seventh Sunday of Easter, as well as the Sunday closest to the Ascension. Our songs were gathered with both of these themes in mind. 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:
Crown Him With Many Crowns by Jameson McGregor
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
Bonfire by Jameson McGregor
Lifted/Lifting by Jameson McGregor
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song is equal parts an acknowledgement that Jesus Christ is Lord and a spoken reminder to ourselves that this is the case. The values that Jesus' lordship represent are not synonymous with our cultural values, and so this reminder has implications for the way we think and live.
Mystery: As we exit the Easter season, we sang this song to once again proclaim the truth of Jesus' defeat of death and stealing of the bite of systems of power.
Rise Up: In the Ascension, there is both a direct charge given to the disciples to spread the good news of the Kingdom throughout the world, and an implicit charge to grow in to the body of Christ and continue the work Jesus had begun. This song is a plea for God to rise up in our midst and transform us into agents of hope, change, and justice--to continue to transform us into the presence of Christ in our immediate surroundings.
Bonfire: This song looks forward to the coming of the Kingdom in fullness, envisioning a great assembling of God's creatures, broken or otherwise, on the shores of a redeemed earth.
You can stream this song for free here.
Lifted/Lifting: This song is about the continual coming-to-understand of the Christian faith. Any idea that we grasp about who God is can only serve as a placeholder for a deeper understanding of God as we are further renovated into the presence of Christ on earth.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This week was the third Sunday of Epiphany, and our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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:
Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Crown Him With Many Crowns by Jameson McGregor
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.
Come Thou Fount: We sang this song to enter into the mindset of encountering anew a God with whom we have a history. As we continue our journey through Epiphany and meet Jesus again, we do so looking back on our own stories of God's faithfulness to us through the process of coming to know God and coming to let go of things we came to know about God that ended up being refined over time.
Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song expresses a desire to be more fully formed in the way of Christ. As we meet Jesus anew during Epiphany, this song puts language to this coming-to-know and joins it with a further desire of coming-to-be-more-like Jesus.
Your Love Is Strong: This song begins with a plea for the Kingdom to come in our world and in the immediate vicinity of our lives. We sang this song primarily to give voice to that plea. In coming to know Jesus, we come to know the Kingdom that he brought with him. This Kingdom has come and is coming. So the plea we made in this song is both for God to more fully form us into Kingdom people in the present, and for God to bring about the Kingdom in fullness in the future.
Mystery: In coming to know the Person of Jesus, we encounter a multi-faceted Mystery. This Person who is infinite, yet finite; divine, yet human; weak, yet strong; defeated, yet victorious; comes to us and calls into question all we think we know to be true about the world. Jesus' identity as Mystery is one of the primary reasons we so desperately need Epiphany to renew our holy curiosity every year--sometimes we forget that we don't have Jesus figured out. This song takes the Mystery of Jesus and champions it using the "formula" of Christ has died//Christ is Risen//Christ will come again, as the chorus. The verses are about the way that Jesus' mystery status meets us in our own lives from without. Here Jesus is the answer to our problems: the sanity and clarity that enters our dissonance, and the evergreen living peace that enters our conflict. But Jesus is also the question to our assumptions about the world: the Eternal Word who is brought low, the cup of salvation that is poured out, the Embodied Love that is broken, and the Trampled Redeemer that is raised and freed. Taken together the verses and chorus of this song champion Jesus as our source of hope when things seem irredeemable--because we learn that Jesus is not limited by what we expect of the way the world works. So in the bridge section, we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus as a symbol of holy subversion to the power structures of the world, and take up singing about this subversion as our own way to subvert oppressive systems of power.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: During Epiphany, the lectionary carries us through a series of texts that reveal something about the way in which Jesus is God-with-us. Last week's Gospel text showed Jesus crowned with the Holy Spirit, and God claiming him as God's son. This week's text had John the Baptist pointing to that coronation, and we joined in that pointing in singing this song.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This week was the first Sunday after Epiphany (or the second Sunday of Epiphany, depending on how you want to slice things), and our songs were gathered with this in mind. 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:
Crown Him With Many Crowns by Jameson McGregor
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band
Noise by Jameson McGregor
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.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: During Epiphany, the lectionary carries us through a series of texts that reveal something about the way in which Jesus is God-with-us. Last week's Gospel text showed Jesus crowned with the Holy Spirit, and God claiming him as God's son. This week's text had John the Baptist pointing to that coronation, and we joined in that pointing in singing this song.
Wandering: Broadly, the weeks between Epiphany, proper, and Lent raise two questions: 1) what does God want us to know about who God is? and 2) what does God want us to know about who we are? We sang this song to trace out part of the answer to both of those questions: God is faithful, and we are consistently wayward. [Note: An album version of this song is available here.]
SMS [Shine]: This song takes up a more metaphorical theme of Epiphany--that of the Light of God--proclaiming that we need God to shine on us in our own personal darkness, and into the darkness of the world.
Noise: This song is a combination of several of the aforementioned themes of Epiphany. It expresses several valences of what it means for God to be God, and what it means for us to be us, and also narrates the coming of the Light into the darkness. [Note: An album version of this song is available here.]
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin to close our time together by making a series of declarations about who God is--a master craftsman, a selfless Lord, and a dependable rescuer--and wrapping all of them in a blanket statement about God's greatness.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This week was Christ the King Sunday, and our songs were gathered with this theme in mind. 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:
Revelation Song by Jennie Lee Riddle
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither
Hope by Jameson McGregor
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.
Revelation Song: We sang this song to begin our time together with a focused and straight-forward moment of singing about God's grandeur and particularity. In thinking about Christ as King, we are met with a picture of power and majesty that is distinctly different than we might imagine out of our own cultural expectations--this almighty King abandoned His station to dwell among the disenfranchised and to champion the cause of the nobodies, and is well-imaged as a slaughtered lamb. In this, we find wonder, mystery, and hope.
Death in His Grave: This song traces the story of Christ, underscoring that Christ's kingship is directly linked to his death--his complete self-emptying--and his resurrection.
Because He Lives: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Because He Lives then: We sang this song to proclaim that our daily hope in the face of uncertainty is located in the risen Christ.
Hope: This song voices the hope we have in Christ, the fire in the darkness. In this image that comes into the world through John 1, we find the most fundamental summation of the Christian story--God set a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome. Fire is more real than the darkness, such that there is no amount of darkness that can overcome the light of the fire.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song well-captures the kind of King that Jesus is: the slaughtered Lamb who receives unmatched and unmatchable praise, who has known intimately the worst of our suffering and conquered it, whose tools of war are peace and love, and to whom all other crowns belong, that we might all find rest and belonging.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
This week was Christ the King Sunday, so our songs were gathered around the theme of kingship. 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
Revelation Song by Jennie Lee Riddle
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
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.
Revelation Song: We sang this song to begin our time together singing about God's holiness/power/all of those things we might associate with God being above and beyond us all. While this is not the primary image of God given in the Christian story, it is important to remind ourselves that God is indeed mysterious, powerful, elusive, holy, etc, so that we will realize how scandalous and amazing it is that this same God cares to have a relationship with us.
All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to contemplate and proclaim the significance of God's kingship for the whole of the created order--not just humans. To say that Christ is King impacts more than humans--it impacts the way stars explode, the way animals go on about their lives, and the way plants climb out of the dirt.
Be Thou My Vision: 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.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song in the middle of our service to proclaim the glory of God in creation (both past and present), the life and death of Jesus, and the future hope of redemption, in the midst of stories that were marked both by tears and bold faith. In some way, we raised this language to remind ourselves of the story in the midst of which we are living--one where God is putting the pieces back together, not spreading them apart.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: I occasionally ask Josh if there are any songs he wants me to include in a set. This week was one of the few times he had a suggestion, so I jumped on it. I had not thought about this song since I was a small child, so I had to go look up the lyrics. It took all of 10 seconds for me to be convinced that this song needed to be in our Christ the King service. In many ways, Christ the King Sunday is about speaking the truth of Jesus' Kingship into a world where such an idea seems like nonsense (because of how broken things are). A thing I love about this song is the way it weaves together God's transcendence and immanence, and God's suffering and victory. These tensions provide a window into a deeper truth about God and God's story.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM