This past Sunday was the first 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. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
Mystery by ubcmusic (adapted from Charlie Hall)
SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band
Where God Has Always Been by ubcmusic
Anthem by Leonard Cohen
Eternal Anchor by ubcmusic
This past Sunday was the sixteenth 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:
Mystery by ubcmusic (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Rise Up by BiFrost Arts
Waking Life by Jameson McGregor
Twice Begun by ubcmusic
This past Sunday was the fifteenth 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:
The Word Is Yet Flesh by ubcmusic
Mother by Jameson McGregor
What The Dry Years Took Away by Jameson McGregor
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic
This past Sunday was the seventh 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:
Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman
Rise Up by BiFrost Arts
Shadow by Jameson McGregor
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 celebrate God’s activity in creation.
Your Love Is Strong: We sang this song to linger on the spirit of the Our Father, which featured in Taylor’s sermon text.
Rise Up: We sang this song to petition God to rise to the defense of the trampled in our world, and to remind ourselves that we are called to do the same.
Shadow: This song is about the difficulty and nigh impossibility of being formed in the way of Christ, and about God’s work of transformation in our lives in spite of this.
There: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about There then: We sang this song to proclaim God as an anchor beyond our struggles, drawing us toward Godself.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
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
This past Sunday was the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind, along with the fact that the sermon would be about Deconstruction. 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 M. Bridges)
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
Waking Life by Jameson McGregor
Wideness by ubcmusic (adapted from F. Faber)
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 focusing on attention on the God who is greater than our words can capture, who spun the cosmos, entered into our suffering, and is making all things new.
Crown Him With Many Crowns: 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.
Future/Past: We sang this song to remember that the love of God comes to us across an impossible gap between what it is to be God and what it is to be human, and this love swallows up the whole of our numbered days.
Waking Life: This song is about God breaking into the systems we make with our brain to organize the world around us. This in-breaking calls into question the ways we reduce our neighbors to empty phrases, and the way we let ourselves off the hook for dehumanizing our enemies.
Wideness: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about Wideness then: This song proclaims that God’s mercy is more complete than our minds can handle, and offers a word of repentance for the ways in which we represent God as less merciful than God is.
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 fourteenth 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:
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark and Sarah McMillan
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
Anthem by Leonard Cohen
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.
Heart Won't Stop: We sang this song to begin our time together by directing our attention to God's incessant pursuit of the redemption of God's creatures.
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.
Rise Up: This song is a prayer for the trampled of the world, that God would rise to their defense and strike down the systems that attack them, and implicitly that God would form us into people who rise to their defense as well.
Anthem: This is a song about the Light of God entering our world through broken places, and offers us a different way to see ourselves in this broken world.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: We sang this song to begin our time together by acknowledging the glory of God in creation, what God has done in Christ, and the ongoing redemption of all creation.
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 thirteenth 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:
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
Amazing Grace by Citizens
Inbreaking 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.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin our time together by acknowledging the glory of God in creation, what God has done in Christ, and the ongoing redemption of all creation.
All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about All Creatures of Our God and King then: We sang this song to join our voices with the whole of creation acknowledging the grandeur of what God has made.
Amazing Grace: This song offers us language to express the work of God's grace in our lives, and challenges us to be present to the ongoing work of God in who we are becoming.
Inbreaking: This song is a plea for God to break into the chaos of our lives and raise up the Kingdom in our midst.
Wayward Ones: This song invites us to remember the self-giving love of Christ as we participate in communion.
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 seventh 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:
SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Eternal Father 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.
SMS [Shine]: This song offered us language to cultivate an openness to the hope of Christ.
Wild One: We sang this song to proclaim God's being greater than our greatest ideas about who God is.
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song helped us express the breadth of God's mercy, beyond our greatest hopes.
Eternal Father: This song is about the prodigal love of God for God's creatures.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to celebrate what God has done in time and space in the hope of training our minds to notice God's continued presence 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 past Sunday was both Mother's Day and the seventh Sunday of Eastertide. Our songs were gathered with this convergence 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:
Hope by Jameson McGregor
There by Jameson McGregor
Mother by Jameson McGregor
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
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 offered us language to begin our time together by proclaiming the grandeur of God through observing what God has made and what God has done in the world.
Hope: This song looks at the mini-Resurrections that God has spread across creation in order to look ahead to the re-Creation of all things.
There: This song is a proclamation of God's being set apart from every source of anxiety, and offers us an Anchor to still ourselves in the turmoil of the world at the moment.
Mother: This song was born out of a desire to enter into the tradition found threaded through Deuteronomy, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jesus, of using maternal metaphors to speak of God. Put differently, it uses the lens of motherhood as a way to speak of the way that God cares for and loves us.
Future/Past: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Future/Past then: We sang this song to celebrate the self-giving love that God invites us into.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Our last liturgy was the second Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:
Bonfire by Jameson McGregor
All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
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.
Bonfire: This song explores the contrast between God and humanity, and looks forward to the coming reconciliation of all things to God; the reconciliation that is sometimes glimpsed in the world around us in justice, redemption, and love. You can hear an album version of this song here.
All the Poor and Powerless: This song is about the hope of Christ in the lives of the oppressed, trampled, criminal, and hopeless, and more broadly about the love of God for God's creatures.
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to remind ourselves that our best ideas of God's love fall short of grasping it in fullness. During Epiphany, we hope to suspend our assumptions about God's love along with everything else we think we know about the Person of Jesus, in hopes of encountering Jesus anew.
Shadow: This song is about the impossibility of dying to self and the vision for humanity embodied in the person of Christ. You can hear an album version of this song here.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: As we travel through Epiphany, most of the gospel readings will depict someone acknowledging Jesus as Lord. This song offered us language to join in this posture of acclamation.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM
Our last liturgy was the second Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:
Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan
There by Jameson McGregor
Anthem by Leonard Cohen
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.
How Great Thou Art: As we travel through Epiphany, most of the gospel readings will depict someone acknowledging Jesus as Lord. This song offered us language to join in this posture of acclamation.
Death In His Grave: As we come to know Jesus again this year, this song in some way hits fast-forward on the story, moving on to the Resurrection, but it also contains an extremely important insight: Jesus was executed as a criminal because his teachings and ministry posed a threat to the religious and political order.
There: This song offers us the chance to step back and notice that, though God is present with us in any given situation, God precedes and will outlast any source of anxiety, and the story-we-live-in says that God intends to bring us along to the other side of sorrow as well.
Anthem: In this season of Light, this song reminds us that the Light of hope enters through the cracks of brokenness.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song echoes the posture of acclamation that we took up in the first song, and offers us the chance to be present to our interconnectivity with the whole of Creation.
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 sixth 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 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon
Anthem by Leonard Cohen
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.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin our time together with a word of gratitude to the breadth of God's work of creation and redemption.
Wandering: This song allows us to confess our tendency to, knowingly or not, attempt to use God for our own ends, while also praising God for being consistently faithful.
Up On A Mountain: We sang this song as a reminder that Christ has entered into our afflictions, knows the depth of our pain, and that the Spirit is present with us, drawing creation toward redemption.
Anthem: This song acknowledges the depth of the brokenness of the world, and imagines the wounds of existence as the points through which the Light enters our stories.
Lifted/Lifting: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Lifted/Lifting last week: 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.
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 fourth Sunday of Easter, and our songs were gathered around the theme of....Easter. 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:
Chariot by Page France
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Pain 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.
Chariot: The chorus of this song captures a central theme of the Easter season: we will become a happy ending. In this simple phrase, we find the core implication of the Resurrection. The Love of God is unhindered on a fundamental level, even by death. God's Yes overwhelms any No that might come before it.
Pulse: This song speaks to the effect of the Resurrection on life in the world. The Resurrection is driven by the transformative power that spreads through the entire cosmos, the Spirit of God. And this same transformative power is working to raise what is dead in us.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: This song gives us language to situate the death and resurrection of Jesus within a broader observation of God's grandeur. The song begins with an observation of the wonders God has made throughout the cosmos, and goes on to observe the trajectory of God's making all things new. In the chorus, it offers us a chance to practice channeling this wonder into praise of God.
Pain: In the death and Resurrection of Jesus, we find that God is able to bear the weight of our suffering and somehow paint life on the other side. This Event offers us a picture of what God can make of our own pain, and it stands as an image of Hope. The chorus of this song,
but the God of the Lighter Load
can take the weight of the pain we hold
until the sting becomes about much more than the pain
it's the place
that we dwell in a Living Hope
the architecture of the ones who know
that, in the end, healing comes like the day:
from the night
is not suggesting that God takes our pain away, but instead enters into our pain and is carrying out the work of transformational healing. This Hope hinges on the image of the Resurrection, on the fact that Jesus's suffering was not miraculously alleviated or cut short, but rather was the first part of a broader story that transcended the suffering itself.
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 week was the third Sunday of Easter, and our songs were gathered around the theme of....Easter. 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:
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
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.
Death In His Grave: We sang this song to narrate again the defeat of death that we observe in this season.
How Great Thou Art: This song gives us language to situate the death and resurrection of Jesus within a broader observation of God's grandeur. The song begins with an observation of the wonders God has made throughout the cosmos, and goes on to observe the trajectory of God's making all things new. In the chorus, it offers us a chance to practice channeling this wonder into praise of God.
Because He Lives: This song takes a few swings at articulating the ways in which the Resurrection shapes the way we engage life now--particularly life's uncertain elements. It offers us the chance to pull the thread between Jesus' breaking through one of the more absolute elements of finite existence (death), and any anxieties we might have about life. Put differently, the Event of the resurrection calls into question what we think we know about how the world works, and gives us reason to hold the stubborn hope that God is actively working to redeem every broken part of creation. This connection is easy to pay lip service to, but really living as though it were true is a life project.
Inbreaking: I've been working on this song for a couple of months. For the first few weeks, I had a handful of lines, but had no idea what they meant. As I kept working at it, I started to see Easter themes emerging. Taken all together, this is a song about the Risen Lord raising us also, both as individuals and as the Body of Christ. It's not squarely focused on the events of Easter, but it is intimately concerned with the role that Eastertide plays in the life of the Church year.
Amazing Grace: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Amazing Grace then: The Resurrection is a transformative act of grace that has implications for the whole of creation. It is a Yes to life and the created world. This song talks about the implications of the Resurrection for our lives, and we sang it to rehearse speaking the truth about God's ongoing redemption project in our midst.
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 Transfiguration Sunday, the final 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:
Revelation Song by Kari Jobe
All Creatures of Our God and King
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
The Transfiguration by Sufjan Stevens
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: The Transfiguration is one of those moments in the gospel narrative where Jesus' particularity is underscored. There aren't words to accurately describe the wonder of this moment, but Revelation Song offers language to talk about it sideways through giving voice to various responses to God's wonder.
All Creatures of our God and King: This song is a rallying cry for every aspect of God's creation to sing of God's grandeur, and voice gratitude for God's creative impulse. This, again, is a sideways response to talking about Jesus' transfiguration, this moment whose significance isn't well-captured by words.
Mystery: We sang this song to acknowledge that the mystery of the Transfiguration is paradigmatic for the mystery of Jesus in his Person, and settles into the positive affirmation that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again, as a way to talk about Jesus' particularity without attempting to make Jesus into an equation to be solved.
The Transfiguration: This song literally narrates the Transfiguration. Listen to it, and know that writing a song that literally narrates a bible story without coming off as trite or poetically lazy is a feat of masterful proportions.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: This song is an exercise in wonder. It allows us to practice connecting the wonders of creation, the redemption story that unfolds in the Bible, and the reconciliation Hope we carry, to the One who is responsible for all of them. This is ultimately the same function of the season of Epiphany.
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 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:
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
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.
Amazing Grace: We sang this song to begin our time together acknowledging the grace of God as it is revealed in the person of Jesus, and the way that this grace has impacted and continues to impact our lives.
Rise Up: This song contrasts the disposition of the God of justice with the inconsistent presence of justice in the world, and rises to a plea for God to act and set things right in the world. It serves a double-purpose: to confess the truth about who God is and to raise a petition for God to show up, and also to remind ourselves of the way we should seek to conduct ourselves in the world if we are to call ourselves people of God.
How Great Thou Art: This song is an exercise in wonder. It allows us to practice connecting the wonders of creation, the redemption story that unfolds in the Bible, and the reconciliation Hope we carry, to the One who is responsible for all of them. This is ultimately the same function of the season of Epiphany.
Lifted/Lifting: This song is about being more fully formed in the way of Christ. When we encounter the Person of Jesus through the Bible, a sermon, etc., we are unable to erase this experience, and are thus changed in some way. When we embrace that Person and seek to become more like him, we are further changed. Somewhere in the midst of this, one might say that a veil is lifted, revealing both who God is and who we are. But the journey toward being formed in the way of Christ is a life-long pursuit. We keep changing and the veil keeps lifting. This song confesses this reality, and asks that the Spirit would continue to transform us, to cultivate the fledgling Hope we carry into full bloom, and to spread the fruit of this hope through the world where the Light is not overcome, yet there is still darkness.
This song is still a work in progress, but I recorded a rough demo of the way it exists now, in the event that you want to listen again:
Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Holy, Holy, Holy last week: We began with this song to start off our morning calibrating our attention to the Triune God, confessing that our comprehension of God is blurred by our human condition, yet also confessing what we do know to be true: God's might, mercy, power, love, and lordship over all of creation.
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 was the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered around the theme of reconciliation. 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:
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
There by Jameson McGregor
Hope by Jameson McGregor
There's a Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
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 is essentially three pairs of observations about how God chooses to be God for us and a response of praise. In it, we find language that helps us marvel at the scope of God's redemption project--from the inception of the cosmos to the moment where things are finally set right. In singing this song, we rehearsed identifying greatness for what it is, and in this case that means seeking to draw near to one's enemies and repair broken relationships (that's one of the running themes throughout the story that God is telling).
Pulse: We sang this song to acknowledge the presence of the Spirit in every living thing, to petition God to reconnect our awareness to this interconnectivity, and to show us what this means for the way we love one another.
There: This song establishes God as standing apart from every source of anxiety or conflict that we encounter. Though God is in fact with us in our affliction, God is anchored outside of it. This means that we have a well-founded hope when we root our hope in God. As Reconciler, God is drawing us into the place of security where God dwells.
Hope: We sang this song to affirm that God has set a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome. We hang our hope on this light, carrying it into the darkness, knowing that the story that God is telling does not end in darkness, but light.
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at the songs from two weeks ago (I was on vacation last Sunday). This is what we said about There's A Wideness in God's Mercy then: We sang this song to begin our time together by thinking about the wideness of God's mercy and the breadth of God's love. More specifically, in terms of the theme that unites this week's songs, the fact that our deficiencies are precisely what place us in the path of God's love. Despite our tendency to attempt to construct boundaries around the love of God, the love of God transcends our limitations and reaches those who deserve it least by even the most generous human standards.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM