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After a long day of chasing Julia and Jackson around in the heat, I was weary inside out and out. So where does a blogger go to refuel? Well – online of course – and straight to her favourite places.
So tonight I headed over to Iris’ blog Sting My Heart and decided to read some of her old Carnival of Beauty posts. I love Iris. She has welcomed me into the blogging community with the arms of Christ. Her writing always encourages and inspires me, and tonight I sang praises alongside her.
Want to join us? Turn up your speakers, close your eyes and start singing – oh – wait – first head over and read her post Hallelujah – Grace Like Rain and then click on the Todd Agnew song “Grace Like Rain.” It is one of my favourite praise songs and I feel it lives out Psalm 33:2-4:
“Praise the LORD with the harp;
make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.
For the word of the LORD is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.” Psalm 33:2-4 (NIV)
I am with Iris about loving contemporary music and I do find it strange that people get in such a tizzy about music needing to be hymns in church. As the Psalms tells us, we are to sing a new song to the Lord. I believe we are to be creating new songs – music from our hearts and with each new generation’s voice.
My Dad always preferred hymns and disliked it when our church moved away from hymns to the newer styles. But the old hymns we all remember are not what David sang. We don’t even know what the music that accompanied the Psalms sounded like! We only know the words. And, if my Dad were still here on earth, I think I would tease him that the Psalms mention tambourines and dancing and I have never heard a hymn accompanied by the ten-stringed lyre. Traditional is relative and different generations will feel more comfortable with different types of worship. What is important is that we are continuing to worship and continuing to offer fresh praises to the Almighty Lord.
Do we really think that God cares what the melody is like? Isn’t he only concerned about our heart’s intention? If your five-year-old grandchild comes to you and sings “You Are My Sunshine” and your teenager comes and plays you a song they just composed for you on their guitar and your adult child gifts you with a hymn on the piano, would you love one of them more than the other? Of course not. One may sound more pleasant to your ear, but your heart would rejoice with the love that resounded. Once again, we humans miss the point, distracted by futile arguments.
Sing whatever tune you like. Just sing to the Lord. And tonight I sang to the Lord with Iris and Todd Agnew’s beautiful love song to our Lord. I hope you joined in too.
Eddie says
That sounds like good reasoning, but like always human wisdom is foolishness to God. We can not get the teaching of the New Testament church put into practice by Jesus and the Apostles by looking at the Old testament practice of temple worship. We are Christians and only because The Christ gave his life for the New covenant by wich the Old was abolished, we should study the Old for many reasons, but this one is silly. Let us make sure that we worship as we have been directed now unless you would like to take back the law that we could not follow that Jesus came to free us from, you cant have it both ways.
amelia says
What a great reminder that we all need to pause and worship!
Thanks for your comment on my site – it absolutely cracked me up! I can tell by the pic that your little guy is quite the ham! I’m sure that if I have a boy this time around, from the stories my husband tells about himself, I will be in for the same!! I’m a hobbyist scrapbooker who has spent waaay too much money over the years, but it was worth every dime! I have a nice little Konica Minolta Dimage XG that fits in my purse so I don’t miss anything. My husband is the designer/photographer though. He has a Nikon Coolpix something or other but we’ll be saving up for a Cannon E0S 30D, I believe, over the next year. He’s a fabulous photographer and needs a better camera. My Dad has a Nikon D70 and loves it.
Christina says
Amen girl. What an awesome post. I do love the contemporary stuff. Out here in Hawaii we have the Fish FM, which is all contemporary Christian music. Also in our church, there are a lot of youth group who also play in the worship band and sing in the choir so they mostly do contemporary stuff. The pastors sons both play electric guitar, and sometimes they get carried away and really start rocking. I notice some of the older parishoners look at them like what the heck is that? But mostly they have a nice mix so it doesn’t offend anyone and there seems to be something for all.
Rena (Mugwumpmom) says
Hi Janice,
Me again..just noticed your questions as to where I attend now. I attend a small church in Abbotsford in the mornings and a large contemporary church in Langley in the evenings. What about you?
presentstorm says
This is one of my favorites. I listen to contemporary Christian all the time. Almost exclusively now that I think about it. It is just what I like. I think you are right about God not caring about the melody but what is in our hearts. Great post. I Love Iris too. She is VERY inspiring. She is always such a blessing to me.
Thanks for stopping by my TT
Rena (Mugwumpmom) says
Great post – totally agree. Some of favorite times are being alone with different types of worship music on in my car and just going to town on the singing and worship…need tinted windows!! LOL. So, you are in BC? You said when you posted on mine…”its hot here”, so I may be making an assumption. I don’t remember it being this hot ever…except maybe in Osooyoos!
Mrs Blythe says
What a wonderful post. I wholeheartedly agree! Blessings.
Carrie K. says
As a worship leader, this has been a constant theme for me. I love the contemporary songs for their freshness and the hymns for their rich doctrine and images. I use both when I lead worship, blending them together from one song to the next. Your analogy about the three children expressing their love with different songs and styles was perfect.
Susanne says
Love this post!! God is after the heart not after a certain style or sound of tune! I would never take away from my mom’s generation the hymns that spoke to their hearts and she doesn’t take away my contemporary worship. Both lead each of us to our Lord in worship and praise. I think sometimes we so let our humanness get into the equation when God is so much bigger!
eph2810 says
I love ya too :smile:…
Isn’t it great to sing praises to Him with a little bass-line and a tamborine? Just spruce up the melody and you’ll get the feet on dancing.
You know, there are some great contemporary versions of old hymns out there – some I don’t care to much for though. The old hymns sometimes have a really hard melody to sing and it makes it hard to worship Him from the bottom of your heart…I am writing a post this morning (hope I get is done – have 20 minutes :lol:) about a song I heard yesterday. I believe it is an old Gaither song, redone by Jars of Clay. They did an awesome job with it…”I’ll Fly Away”!!!
Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Rhonda says
Thank you for this lovely post. I took a break from making my own custom realtor cards and must say it made me positively weepy. Sometimes it’s helpful to let that out first thing in the morning and recharge your battery for the day.
Kari says
I absolutely loved this post! Praise and worship is such a beautiful time with our Lord no matter what you sing. I too find hymns a little harder to sing but the words are great!
Dana says
i loved this post
**happy sigh**
we sing Grace like Rain in worship at church–one of my faves