This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent, 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:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Eternal Anchor by ubcmusic
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Drawing in the Dust by Jameson McGregor
This past Sunday was the twentieth 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:
Wideness by ubcmusic
House of God Forever by Jon Foreman
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Breathe For Me by Jameson McGregor
Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor
This past Sunday was the tenth 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Eternal Anchor by ubcmusic
Waking Life by Jameson McGregor
For All That I Don’t Know by Jameson McGregor
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.
Wandering: We sang this song to proclaim God’s faithfulness to us despite our unreliable faithfulness to God.
Eternal Anchor: This song is about God making all things new.
Waking Life: This song is about God’s reality breaking through our own and reframing the way we experience the world.
For All That I Don’t Know: This song is about clinging to faith when clinging to faith doesn’t seem like a viable option.
Inbreaking: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about Inbreaking then: This song is a plea for the Slaughtered Lamb to enter again into our suffering and make all things new.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
This past Sunday was the fifth Sunday of Lent, 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:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Come Alive 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.
In the Night: This song traces the thread of God’s presence within struggle throughout the biblical narrative, and invites us to step into the lineage of hope-in-despair.
Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.
Wandering: We sang this song to remind ourselves and proclaim aloud that God is faithfulness is constant when ours falters, and that God is, for whatever reason, choosing to draw us in to God’s work in the world despite how unreliable we can be.
Come Alive: This song is about our coming alive as we learn to do the dance of Christ.
Be Thou My Vision: This song will accompany us through Lent, reminding us to turn to God for our vision, wisdom, and security.
Yesterday was the first Sunday of Lent, 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:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Chasing the Wind 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.
In the Night: This song traces the thread of God’s presence within struggle throughout the biblical narrative, and invites us to step into the lineage of hope-in-despair.
Lord, I Need You: We sang this song to take on its confession of dependence upon the Spirit as we make our way further into the Lenten season.
Wandering: We sang this song to celebrate God’s faithfulness to us despite our failing to be faithful to God.
Chasing the Wind: This song is about the emptiness that comes with trying to make ourselves whole.
Be Thou My Vision: This song will accompany us through Lent, reminding us to turn to God for our vision, wisdom, and security.
Yesterday was the third 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Anthem by Leonard Cohen
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic (arranged)
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.
Wandering: We sang this song to celebrate God's faithfulness to us in the midst of our inevitable falling short of being the presence of Christ in our time and place during Ordinary Time.
There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song proclaims that God's mercy is beyond even our most generous definitions of mercy, and offers us a new way to conceive of the way God views us, and challenges us to rethink the way we think of other people.
Be Thou My Vision: This song is a plea for God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope in the whole of our lives.
Anthem: This song proclaims that Light finds its way into brokenness, and offers us hope to hold onto in the midst of darkness.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: We sang this song to celebrate and cling to the transforming love of 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
Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Lent, 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:
Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
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: We sang this song to begin our gathering by proclaiming the self-giving love of God.
Wandering: This song gave us language to celebrate God's faithfulness to us despite our inconsistent faithfulness to God.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about O Love That Will Not Let Me Go then: Lent can be a daunting season as we come to terms with our sin. We sang this song to remind ourselves of the enduring love of God.
In the Night: This song carries us through Lent all the way to Easter. It is a record of God’s showing up in the midst of despair throughout the biblical narrative.
Be Thou My Vision: Throughout the Lenten season, we will close our liturgies with these words to reaffirm our desire to seek our vision, wisdom, and security in God alone.
-JM
Yesterday was the first Sunday of Lent, 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:
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
For Those Tears I Died by Jameson McGregor
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
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.
Rise Up: We sang this song to petition God to rise to the defense of the vulnerable, and by extension a reminder to ourselves that to be the people of God is to take up the cause of the vulnerable.
Come Thou Fount: This song offers us language to seek sustenance in who God is and root our hope in who God has been for us.
Wandering: This song praises God’s faithfulness in the midst of our own inconsistency and selfishness.
For Those Tears I Died: This song is a cry of lament. I’ve thought of these words as being directly related to too many tragedies to even remember—it’s just a blur of despair at this point. And I hate that. But these are words I return to time and again to process my rage when faced with a reminder of how very evil we humans are capable of being.
In the Night: This song carries us through Lent all the way to Easter. It is a record of God’s showing up in the midst of despair throughout the biblical narrative.
Be Thou My Vision: Throughout the Lenten season, we will close our liturgies with these words to reaffirm our desire to seek our vision, wisdom, and security in God alone.
-JM
This was the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, and it was also youth Sunday. That means the songs were picked by the youths. 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:
Chariot by Page France
Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon
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: 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.
Fall Afresh: This song is a petition for the Spirit to infuse our lives with vitality and purpose, and to protect us from growing numb to the work of God in the world.
Wandering: We sang this song to proclaim the faithfulness of God, despite our tendency to be selectively faithful toward God.
Wild One: This song is a reminder that our ideas about who God is are never synonymous with who God in fact is, and draws us into a posture of worship predicated on our inability to comprehend God fully.
Up On A Mountain: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Up On A Mountain then: We sang this to proclaim Jesus' solidarity with us in suffering, the depths of human pain, and the ongoing presence of God with us via the Spirit.
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 twenty-first 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Ascend the Hill)
Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan
Bonfire by Jameson McGregor
Death In His Grave 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.
Wandering: We sang this song to proclaim God's faithfulness to us in the midst of our tendency to attempt to steer God toward our own devices. In doing so, we reminded ourselves that God has decided to pull us into God's story, and our own shortcomings or inconsistencies are not powerful enough to change God's mind about that.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song gives voice to the hope against hope that not even death can separate us from the love of God.
Murdered Son: This song proclaims the work of God in Christ, holds up the truth about how far God was willing to go to set things right with us, and ultimately poses an open question to us about what this means for a group of people who are seeking to be formed into the presence of Christ in their time and place.
Bonfire: This song traces the vast distance between what it is to be God and what it is to be human, and looks ahead to where that divide is ultimately transgressed.
Death In His Grave: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Death In His Grave then: 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.
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 eighteenth 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:
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark and Sarah McMillan
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Wandering 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.
Just A Closer Walk With Thee: As we seek to discern what it means to be the presence of Christ in our time and place during Ordinary Time, we sang this song to express a desire to be formed more fully in the way of Christ, while also acknowledging that our pursuit of this task will be flawed.
Heart Won't Stop: This song offers us the chance to confess the relentless love of God.
Mystery: 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.
Inbreaking: This song is a petition for the Living God to break into the brokenness of the world and carry out God's work of re-Creation in our midst.
Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Wandering then: We sang this song to confess our tendency to try to harness faith for our own means, and to give voice to the faithfulness of God despite this fact.
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. 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Tune It Out 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.
Wandering: We sang this song to confess our tendency to try to harness faith for our own means, and to give voice to the faithfulness of God despite this fact.
Up On A Mountain: This song contemplates the presence of Christ in suffering, and the continued presence of the Spirit among us.
Pulse: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Pulse then: This song is a confession of our tendency to be selective with our love for people, such that we withhold this love from people we deem to be "others." This confession includes a petition for the Spirit to awaken us to our interconnectivity with the rest of Creation and to relate to everyone we encounter as a creature who is worthy of love.
Tune It Out: This song is about the disconnect between thought and action that we each carry in our own ways, and raises the question of which of these things defines us (or whether they do at all).
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 seventh Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts (particularly, the weeds & wheat passage that Josh preached from). 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:
Hope by Jameson McGregor
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher
There by Jameson McGregor
For Those Tears I Died by Jameson McGregor
Wandering 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.
Hope: This song clings to the hope that the work of redemption made visible in the Resurrection will spread to the entirety of the cosmos. This hope is characterized as such because, at the moment, things are still not as they should be--the weeds are growing up with the wheat, so to speak.
Lord, I Need You: This song is a confession of our need for the transformation of the Spirit in our own lives to form us into people who are like Christ, and for the Spirit to hold us together as we face any number of struggles in living in a world that is still broken.
There: This song proclaims that the same God who is imminent with us in our suffering also stands over and above every kind of brokenness as an Anchor that is holding us in place in the midst of the turbulence of history.
For Those Tears I Died: This song holds in tension both the solidarity of Christ with human suffering, and the cry of "how long?" from the worn-thin world.
Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Wandering then: 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.
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 was the second 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 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Rise Up by Bifrost Arts
Breathe for Me 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 began with this song to confess that we gathered to worship with the hope that the Spirit would form our community more fully into the way of Christ, and to remind ourselves that looking back on who God has been for us is an excellent indicator of who God will be for us in the future.
Wandering: This song is a confession that we have a tendency to make our ideas about God into an idol that can be harnessed and manipulated for our own purposes, and a proclamation that God is somehow able to work in the midst of that.
Rise Up: This song is both a plea for God to rise to the defense of the trampled people in the world and a challenge to ourselves as the Body of Christ to be active in defending those whom God defends.
Breathe for Me: This song is about transformation in the midst of despair. For any number of reasons, we might find ourselves worn thin by life, and this song offers language for petitioning the Spirit to breathe life into what is dead in us.
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 then: Since it was Trinity Sunday, this seemed like a good song to begin our time together. It's a confession of, and implicit surrender to, God's Otherness--a way of saying that God is beyond our comprehension.
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 week of Lent, 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:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Up to the Mountain (MLK Song) by Patty Griffin
Wandering 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.
In the Night: We will be adding a piece to this song every week of Lent. It traces a thread of struggle through the biblical narrative, ultimately building a case to hold hope in the midst of immense darkness. We recorded a live version of this song last year, which you can download for free here.
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song speaks a word of mercy into our desert of Lent. Even as we take time to notice our sin and to lean more deliberately into transformation, we sang this song to remind ourselves that the ever-wide mercy and ever-broad love of God wholly embraces us.
Pulse: This song is a confession that the love of God and the love that we claim to embody are not always the same thing, and a plea for God to reconnect us to God's active, dynamic, life-giving Spirit and rewrite our notions of love.
Up to the Mountain (MLK Song): This song was selected and sung by Natalie Ramirez, so I asked her for her thoughts on it--here's what she said: There's a lot of humanity and struggle and hope expressed in a simple way in this song. Sometimes life feels like it is too much. Sometimes I question myself and my ability. Sometimes it feels like the good places God wants to take me are going to be too much work or I distrust they won't actually be good. Sometimes God is hard to notice or see or feel and it's hard to see the good or even enjoy the good even when it's there. Sometimes it feels like life is only going to be hard and tiring. But there are moments and glimpses to hold onto where God speaks in what can feel like quick whispers reminding me that I am loved. Reminding me that He asks me to carry on not as an order or a test or to make me more tired but because He loves me and believes in me and is with me. And even if this life may not have a complete peace, trusting in the Voice that may feel like it's coming and going allows me to hope that I'll hear it again and one day will know it fully.
Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Wandering then: During Lent, we enter the wilderness to ask the question of who we are and what we are for, using Jesus as our mirror, and ask the Spirit to transform us more fully into this identity. Though we make a point to do this for 6 weeks, this sort of wilderness wandering is something most of us do often. The Christian life is a push-pull between being more fully formed in the way of Christ and settling back into the rhythms that we are seeking to be transformed away from. If we look inside of ourselves for some sort of consistent cause for hope, we will not find it. But if we look to God, we will find that God is faithful to us throughout our own ebb and flow of learning to live like Jesus. So if we build our hope on God's faithfulness to us, we are well on our way to having more solid footing to move forward. We sang this song to proclaim this truth, to worship God in light of it, and to remind ourselves that our overarching life of faith is tied to who God is for us (not solely if we can look in the mirror and see a perfect Christian). You can find a studio version of this song here.
Be Thou My Vision: During Lent, we depart from our typical singing of the Doxology to close our time together. As we wander the wilderness of Lent, learning more about who we are and what we are for, we carry these words on our tongues, time and again asking God to be our vision, wisdom, and security.
-JM
This week was the third week of Lent, 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:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle
Shadow by Jameson McGregor
House of God Forever by Jon Foreman
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.
In the Night: We will be adding a piece to this song every week of Lent. It traces a thread of struggle through the biblical narrative, ultimately building a case to hold hope in the midst of immense darkness. We recorded a live version of this song last year, which you can download for free here.
Wandering: During Lent, we enter the wilderness to ask the question of who we are and what we are for, using Jesus as our mirror, and ask the Spirit to transform us more fully into this identity. Though we make a point to do this for 6 weeks, this sort of wilderness wandering is something most of us do often. The Christian life is a push-pull between being more fully formed in the way of Christ and settling back into the rhythms that we are seeking to be transformed away from. If we look inside of ourselves for some sort of consistent cause for hope, we will not find it. But if we look to God, we will find that God is faithful to us throughout our own ebb and flow of learning to live like Jesus. So if we build our hope on God's faithfulness to us, we are well on our way to having more solid footing to move forward. We sang this song to proclaim this truth, to worship God in light of it, and to remind ourselves that our overarching life of faith is tied to who God is for us (not solely if we can look in the mirror and see a perfect Christian). You can find a studio version of this song here.
Fall Afresh: As we enter further into Lent, our introspection can begin to conjure a weight that doesn't seem worth carrying. We sang this song to ask for help, to ask the Spirit to cultivate transformation in us.
Shadow: There is a theme of Lent that is centered on learning how to die to ourselves in order to be more like Christ. This song traces the internal struggle that this concept can ignite within us, using the image of talking in our sleep--having the sense of what we are trying to do, without the sense to actually execute it meaningfully. The end of the song brings in the thought that perhaps God has given us the Word we need. I'm not talking specifically about the Bible, though the Bible plays a role in what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Word-made-flesh of Jesus, who we come to know through the witness of the Bible and the embodiment of Jesus in other people who are being formed in the way of Christ. The point isn't to offer a "solution" to the "problem" identified in the "talking in my sleep" image, but instead to suggest that God has not left us to our own devices in our transformation. The word we couldn't call to mind has been spoken for us, and it reverberates around us even as we try to get our mouths to form it ourselves. You can find a studio version of this song here.
House of God Forever: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about House of God Forever then: This song serves as an early reminder that we will need time and again during Lent that God cares for us in the midst of our struggles (whatever they may be). God brings safety into our danger, a feast into our hunger, and a light into our darkness.
Be Thou My Vision: During Lent, we depart from our typical singing of the Doxology to close our time together. As we wander the wilderness of Lent, learning more about who we are and what we are for, we carry these words on our tongues, time and again asking God to be our vision, wisdom, and security.
-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 twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs 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, 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
There by Jameson McGregor
Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither
Wild One 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.
Wandering: We sang this song to begin our time together proclaiming that God is not in the habit of abandoning us--even when we deserve it most. God's faithfulness to us is thankfully not conditional upon our own faithfulness to God. Because of this, we can have hope that God is continually working toward reconciliation with us, and in this we can stake our hope.
There: This song is about the fact that God transcends every source of anxiety that we encounter in life, which means the threats we feel around us do not have the same effect on God. Though God enters into our suffering with us, God is not chained to it. And in drawing nearer to God, we find a refuge that will deliver us as well.
Because He Lives: We sang this song to proclaim that our daily hope in the face of uncertainty is located in the risen Christ.
Wild One: This song is about our propensity to create idols out of ideas--the idea of safety, the idea of prosperity, a particular idea of who God is--and the way in which these idols shatter when they come into contact with God.
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 paints a vivid picture of an apocalyptic wedding feast where the varied and broken stories that make up human history are woven into a decidedly untragic ending. As we think about the communion of the saints and our Christ-centered interconnectivity, it is fitting to begin by imagining the moment in which this interconnectivity is no longer veiled.
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 twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs around the theme of healing. 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:
Wandering by Jameson McGregor
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)
Breathe For Me by Jameson McGregor
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher
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.
Wandering: We sang this song to celebrate God's faithfulness to us, even though our faithfulness to God is inconsistent, at best. With the theme of healing in mind, we might think of God's relentless choice to be God-for-us as the method of God's healing us. God is actively healing us of our brokenness all the time, though this process is slow. And, because God has chosen to redeem what God has made, we can trust that God will be faithful to do exactly that.
Amazing Grace: This song is an exercise in looking back to look forward. The saving work that God has enacted in our lives is not a one-off event, but instead is indicative of the way God acts toward us in general. So, looking back at the glimmers of hope or healing in our stories, we move forward knowing that there will be more.
There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song confronts our tendency to try to talk ourselves out of any confidence in God's faithfulness to be God-for-us--as though we could disqualify ourselves. Instead, it reminds us that the love of God is not limited by our own sense of what kind or degree of mercy we deserve.
Breathe for Me: The healing we experience in our lives of faith tends to cycle--that is, we usually break again in one way or another. This song is a record of re-breaking, and a plea for healing: for God to start over with the dust and ash of what is left, form it clean, and breath into it again.
Lord, I Need You: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Lord, I Need You Then: 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.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM