This past Sunday was the fourteenth 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:
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic
True Love Will Find You In The End by Daniel Johnston
Eternal Anchor by ubcmusic
This past Sunday was Trinity Sunday, 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:
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic
Eternal Anchor by ubcmusic
Heart Won’t Stop by John Mark and Sarah 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.
Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to begin our time together on Trinity Sunday by proclaiming the mystery of the Trinity.
Wild One: This song offered us language to celebrate God’s not being pinned down by our assumptions about who God is.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song helped us proclaim the constancy of God’s love despite the contingency of the love we sometimes offer one another. Also, yesterday was Father’s Day, which, as we noted, is a difficult day for some of us; this song was to offer hope into that despair.
Eternal Anchor: This song is about God’s grafting of the seemingly least likely into the family of God.
Heart Won’t Stop: This song quotes at length Psalm 139, which was Toph’s sermon text. It celebrates the constancy of God’s love in the midst of the ebb and flow of our lives.
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 third Sunday of Eastertide, 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:
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor
Pulse by ubcmusic
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.
Wild One: We sang this song to celebrate God’s not being bound by our expectations of who God is.
Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.
Death In His Grave: We sang this song to rehearse the death and Resurrection of Christ.
Inbreaking: This song is a petition for the Slaughtered Lamb to work Resurrection in our midst.
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 petition for the Spirit to work Resurrection in our hearts and form us 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.
Yesterday was the second Sunday of Epiphany, and the beginning of an important conversation in the life of our church. 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:
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle
The Word Is Yet Flesh by Jameson McGregor
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
Pulse by ubcmusic
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.
Wild One: We sang this song to begin our time together to focus our attention on the God who is greater than our most polished theological systems can account for.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song invites us to contemplate our familial relationship and unity with all of creation.
Fall Afresh: We sang this song to invite the Spirit to refresh the dry places within us and to reinvigorate our being formed in the way of Christ.
The Word Is Yet Flesh: This song is a plea for the One in whom all things hold together to hold together the fractured body of Christ.
Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.
Pulse: We sang this song to petition the Spirit to reawaken us to our interconnectivity and to teach us to love one another as Christ loved 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 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:
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Wideness by ubcmusic (adapted from F. Faber)
Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor
Collision/Dread by Jameson McGregor
Pulse by ubcmusic
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.
Wild One: We began with this song as a way to speak the truth that God is greater than our greatest ideas about who God is, and crushes the idols we make our of our notions of God. It also invites us to consider the areas of our theological systems that we have elevated beyond their station.
Wideness: 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.
Where God Has Always Been: This song celebrates the One who is near to the weary and lifts up the lowly.
Collision/Dread: This song is a mashup of two short songs about the experience of existential anxiety, the feeling of absence that such a state brings, and suggests that God is not hiding apart from our pain, but is instead found within our pain.
Pulse: This song is a confession that our loves are fragile and selective, and invites the Spirit to reawaken us to the interconnectivity 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
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
Yesterday was the first Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Trinity 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:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Pulse 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.
Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to begin Trinity Sunday by speaking of the Triune God who evades our mental categories and whose grandeur is beyond what our language can describe.
Come Thou Fount: As Trinity Sunday allows us to speak of God and God's relationship to us cumulatively, this song offers us language to speak of who God has been in order to look ahead to who we might expect God to be for us.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song orients our worship alongside all of creation, recognizing that the Triune God is working toward the re-Creation of all things.
Wild One: This song speak of God's evading our grasp and always being greater than we can comprehend.
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 about the Breath of Life in all of creation, and petitions the Spirit to reawaken our hearts to our interconnectivity to all creatures, that we might be moved toward loving as God does.
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-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 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 first Sunday after Pentecost, which is Trinity 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 recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Noise by Jameson McGregor
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle
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.
Holy, Holy, Holy: 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.
All Creatures of Our God and King: This song imagines all of creation, ourselves included, singing out in praise of the Creator. To sing this song is to at least pay lip service to our interconnectedness with the rest of creation, and also to ascribe a dignity and worth to the earth, animals, plants, stars, etc., that we often only afford humans (and sometimes, worse, just the humans that are like us). In light of Trinity Sunday, we might consider this song to acknowledge the unity of the loving community of the Trinity being painted across all of creation.
Noise: This song traces the vast difference between God and humanity, and also narrates God's transgressing of that difference in the Incarnation. It explores how God's triunity both accounts for this difference and bridges the gap.
Wild One: This song is about God's always being beyond our full comprehension, and always being able to smash through the idols we make of who we expect God to be.
Fall Afresh: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Fall Afresh then: We sang this song to step into the Pentecost story by confessing a desire for the Spirit to indwell our community and set us on 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 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 fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered with God's pursuit of reconciliation 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:
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark McMillan
All Creatures of Our God and King
Wild One 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.
Heart Won't Stop: We sang this song to begin with the confession that there aren't any barriers that God is unwilling to transgress to reconnect with God's children.
Be Thou My Vision: With this God of relentless love and grace in mind, we sang this song to ask that God would be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope, forming us into people who love relentlessly as well.
All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to proclaim that God is Lord of all creation, and that God thus cares for all of creation intimately. Keeping the petition from Be Thou My Vision in mind, this song also functions as a charge to ourselves to care intimately for all of creation.
Wild One: We sang this song to worship the Unbound God. These words serve as a pointed reminder to ourselves that we cannot control God and that God's love is not limited to the things or people that we love. God is active and on the move in the world around us, telling a dynamic story that's better than the best kind of story we could think up.
Future/Past: This song is a further response to the theme ofWandering. Beyond God's faithfulness, it traces several layers of God's grandeur, and notes the surprising fact that God has called us friends. The divine-human relationship is an unequal partnership. It's the kind that leaves the lesser party (us) wholly caught up in the undeserved grace of God to allow us to enter into a project of which we are not worthy. God stands before us and beyond us, and somehow still stands with 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 week, we celebrated ubc's 21st birthday, and took time to look back over our history to observe God's faithfulness. All of the songs we sang came out of ubc through the ages, and gave voice to some of the core convictions of our community. 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:
Here Is Our King by David Crowder* Band
SMS (Shine) by David Crowder* Band
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
All I Can Say by David Crowder* Band
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.
Here Is Our King: We sang this song to begin our time together embracing the joy of Christmas that shines through Epiphany, in declaring that the Love of God has come to us in Jesus, and to hold this love in our minds as we began thinking about God's faithfulness to our community over the years.
SMS (Shine): We sang this song to give voice to the longing that we all share at one time or another to be lifted out of dark places, or at the very least to be given some kind of glimpse of God when we feel abandoned. We voice this longing confidently, knowing that God hears us when we call and does not cast us aside. This song also has a special place in the history of ubc because the community worked together to assemble an absurd number of lite-brites to make this music video, which won a Dove Award:
Wayward Ones: We sang this to confess that we are broken, unreliable people, and to worship God for extending self-sacrificial love to us nonetheless. This song has been a great gift that Tye gave our community in his time as Worship & Arts pastor, and it is the title track of an album he released while on staff. You can listen to it here.
All I Can Say: We sang this to confess that God is with us in our suffering. One of the great things about this song is that it provides a way to engage God when we have little to nothing to say other than that we are hurting, yet allows us to confess that God is with us even when we feel abandoned.
Wild One: We sang this song to confess that God is not bound by who we expect God to be, but is instead far greater than our most grandiose ideas of who 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
This week was the first Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany is an interesting season. It begins with the Epiphany (the Star, wise men, etc.), which begins a journey through moments in Jesus' life that serve to reveal Jesus' divinity and mission (baptism, miracles, Transfiguration). These moments are "epiphanies" in their own right, but the church calendar postures them as looking over their shoulder at Epiphany (that's why its the first Sunday after Epiphany, rather than the first Sunday of Epiphany/the epiphanies). Anyway. Our songs were gathered around the theme of what the Incarnation reveals to us about who God is. 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:
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark McMillan
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
Because He Lives by Bill Gaither
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.
Heart Won't Stop: The language of this song is taken from Psalm 139, and it proclaims the fact that we cannot outrun the love of God, and there is no hole that we can dig ourselves that is deep enough to convince God to finally leave us alone. In the Word becoming flesh in Jesus, God sends a clear message about just how far God is willing to go to set things right with Creation. And while this self-humbling of God is profound on its own, we know that this is not the part of the Christian story where we see God go the furthest for us. We sang this song because it reminds us that God-with-us is a label that God took upon Godself on purpose, and God did not ask humanity what we thought first--we are loved, whether we think it is appropriate or not.
Amazing Grace: We sang this song to look at the significance of the Word becoming flesh from a different angle, where we think of the fact that God's choosing to be God-with-us has fundamentally changed the way that we exist in the world. God-with-us means that we are not left to our own devices, but rather have a Fellow Traveler in the world Who knows our struggles and feels our pain, yet does not mirror our faults. When this understanding meets the love of God, we find something we might call grace.
Because He Lives: I normally think of the Resurrection when I hear this song, but I think it carries, at the very least, a double entendre. We sang this song because the fact that the Word became flesh--the fact that God chose to be God-with-us--means that we can have a new kind of Hope. The darkness of Advent has been pierced by a Fire in its midst, and the darkness cannot overcome it. If nothing else, at this early part of the Christian story, we know that the Story is far from over, and this is the hope we carry with us, facing each new day with expectation.
Wild One: We sang this song because the Word becoming flesh reveals to us that God is not pinned down by who we expect God to be. The people of God were not expecting a Messiah like Jesus. Our most pristine theological categories struggle to make sense of why God would enter our mess of a world in vulnerability rather than destroying it and starting over. The aim of this song is to refocus our minds on the fact that it is God--God-with-us-- who is worthy of our worship, not our most comfortable picture of God. That is to say, we must constantly be looking for a God who is on the move, who is dynamic, rather than assuming that we figured God out long ago. The God revealed in Jesus is a God who is full of surprises and is not easily categorized or mapped out.
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: We sang this song to specifically locate our worship of Jesus within the scope of the Triune 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
This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of God's freedom. 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 atjamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark McMillan
House of God Forever by Jon Foreman
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.
Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to begin our time together by establishing that God is beyond us--out of our reach. We offer our attention and praise to God, though God has no "need" of this, and really is not obligated to listen to us.
Heart Won't Stop: We sang this song to think about the fact that God not only chooses to take notice of us, but continually pursues us, even when we have made our home in places we might assume God will not go.
House of God Forever: We sang this song to proclaim that God does not simply pay attention to us or pursue us. Instead, God draws us near--takes care of us. At this point, we are a far cry from what we might expect of the Holy God we sang about in the first song.
Wild One: We sang this song as a response to the tension presented between the first song and the second two: God is not limited by who we expect God to be or by what makes sense to us. God is holy and "removed," yes, but God is also present in the midst of what seems to be the farthest from holy, working to establish a relationship with creatures who[(m) i really never know which one] God could easily destroy and move on. God is not hemmed in by red tape and policies in order to be holy--God is free. And God uses this freedom in surprising ways, continually showing us just how little we understand about love.
Be Thou My Vision: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Be Thou My Vision then: We sang this song as a communal prayer that God would transform the way we see the world, and the way we live in it. [I changed a line of this song over the summer--if you missed the explanation for that change, you can check out the setlist from that week 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, Josh preached from Luke 12:13-21. It was also Trinity Sunday, which is the day on the Church calendar that we make a point to acknowledge, contemplate, and appreciate the fact that God has been revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--Three, yet One. Our songs were gathered with the Trinity 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, 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
House of God Forever by Jon Foreman
Wild One by Jameson McGregor
Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle
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.
Holy, Holy, Holy: This song presents the tension between God being glorious, such that there is no one else that stands on equal footing with God, and the fact that God is both One and Three. This is most apparent at the end of the third stanza when "there is none beside Thee" and "God in Three persons, blessed Trinity" are placed side by side. There are various ways to think about the word "holy," but perhaps one of the most straight forward, when speaking of God, is the idea that God is Wholly Other. This means that what we can know about God is fundamentally limited--even though God created us in way that we can be in relationship with God. The mystery of the Trinity is incoherent in terms of human reason, but it would be presumptuous to assume that we have the capacity to map out and comprehend One who is Wholly Other.
Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to focus on God the Son. In Jesus, God crossed the boundary between being Wholly Other and experiencing existence as a human. Though humans cannot hope to ascend to the heights of God and understand everything there is to know about God, God came to us and showed us who God is in a "language" that we can understand. Aside from showing us what God is like, Jesus called us to be a particular kind of people--people of love. With this in mind, we sang this not only to acknowledge Jesus as God, but to ask for help in being people who are more formed into His likeness.
House of God Forever: We sang this song to focus on God the Father. Though God is Wholly Other, God cares for us. Though there is much about God that we cannot understand, God fully understands us, and knows how to meet our needs.
Wild One: I shared a reading from N.T. Wright's For All God's Worth before we played this song, and I think his words sum up the place of this song better than I can articulate. You can read the selection here.
Fall Afresh: We sang this song to focus on God the Holy Spirit. Though God is Wholly Other, God has come to dwell among us in the Holy Spirit, transforming us into something new, and connecting us to one another and to Godself. We also sang this song to look over our shoulder at last weeks' songs. This is what we said: When we come to Pentecost each year, we are celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts, thanking God for blessing the Church with the Gift of God's continual presence. We are also reminding ourselves that this Gift has been given to us as well. In reminding ourselves of this, we are hoping for a renewed awareness of the Spirit's presence. We shouldn't reduce Pentecost to a yearly refilling station for caring about the Spirit, but we also should not pretend that we live lives that are fully aware of the Spirit at all times. Pentecost is a time to remember that we are a people who have been given a Gift, and to live into that reality.
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, our friend Dan Venzin preached to us from Joshua 24. Our songs were gathered with the fourth week of Easter 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, 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band
Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan
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.
All Creatures of Our God and King: God does not plan on abandoning the world. God is making all things new. The Resurrection means that the created world--plants, dirt, animals, people--have the hope of being made new. This song is one of those songs that says "oh, praise him," a lot, but there's not much else to say in light of that kind of news.
Death In His Grave: A glaring part of Easter hope is the fact that death is no longer the end of human life. Though it's hard to see from our vantage point, Jesus changed something fundamental about the human condition: the thing that was broken about us is being fixed, and we get to share in the Resurrection of Jesus.
Because He Lives: The Resurrection redefined human life in such a way that we do not have to mourn the passing of each moment. Life is a gift, and though death is certain, the hope of the resurrection can give us the audacity to embrace each new day.
Wild One: God is not bound by who we expect God to be. The disciples expected a different kind of Jesus than they got. Reason expected Jesus to stay dead. We can rest knowing that God is greater than we expect, and that God is active in time and space.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this to look over our should at the songs we sang last week. This hymn is ultimately pointing a finger at the fact that God is "great." In the context of Easter, we emphasize the fact that God is great because God did not abandon us to our brokenness, but instead came down low to where we are, suffered, and died, so that we wouldn't have to be trapped in our brokenness anymore. This is not only the God who made us, not only who knows us, but who loves 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