ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL
TODAY'S ARTISTS DIG INTO THE PAST TO MAKE SENSE OF TODAY... AND OF THE FUTURE.
(by Gregory Rumburg)
Let’s face it: Hymns suffer from an
image problem in many church circles today. Revered, yet dusty and quaint.
Beautiful and insightful... as in that special way ninth grade lit teachers
preach that Beowulf matters and makes sense.
But it's difficult
in worship services today to find words resembling Joseph Hart's 18th
century hymn "Come, Ye Sinners:" "Come, ye sinners, poor and
wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
full of pity, joined with power...."
That's all about
to change.
New albums
dropping now and later this spring by the likes of Amy Grant, Ashley Cleveland,
Out of Eden, Jars of Clay and a slew of others (see sidebar on page 33)
spotlight church hymns. Works from the familiar, such as Out of Eden's
"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise," to the uncommon, such as Jars
of Clay's recording of "Thou Lovely Source of True Delight," are
cloaked in new, stylized tunes, landing in listeners' ears with
straight-from-the-garden freshness. Such recasting is a practice that's existed
among church musicians for centuries but fell out of fashion during recent
generations as particular texts started to be associated with specific tunes.
Is this another
worship trend? Just happy coincidence? Some musicians say the modern worship
movement was bound to swing another direction. Music tastes change. After all,
just look at 2004's year-end album sales charts. According to SoundScan the
genre of "modern worship" didn't even crack the top 10 of the year's
best-selling Christian albums. Either way, worship continues to evolve.
So, brace
yourself. The hymnal of today may be no further away than your iPod. If that
seems strange, try thinking about what it would be like to
explain digital downloads to hymn writers like Martin Luther (1483-1546),
Charles Wesley (1707-1788), Fanny Crosby (1820-1915), Isaac Watts (1674-1748),
Thomas Dorsey (1899-1965) and Anne Steele (1716-1778).
DISCOVERING IDENTITY
Theories
vary, but historians suggest changing musical tastes - especially among
"Baby Boomers" and as illustrated by the rise of praise & worship
music during the last 30-plus years - and the diminishing draw of denominational
churches contributed to the result that many Christians today have never sung
"Come, Ye Sinners" and thousands of other church hymns typically
characterized by a consistent meter and a four-line verse structure with a
progressive theme.
Christian music’s
leading lady Amy Grant is glad that's changing. With more than 25 years in
music, Grant's seen plenty of musical preferences ebb and flow. "I think
what's going on today is a timely reaction to what's going on in the church.
There's been so much interest in praise choruses. Now I think it's the pendulum
swinging back the other way to reconsider hymns again," she says.
"What I love about hymns is that they are steeped in theology. They go so,
so deep into your soul."
The idea of a hymn
is Greek, intending to be a song of praise in honor of the gods, heroes and
conquerors. Biblical New Testament writers adapted the concept, narrowing
Christian hymns to become praise songs honoring God, as found in Paul's
writings to the Ephesians and Colossians. They complemented the Jewish (and
later, Jewish convert) tradition of singing the Psalter. Across centuries and
into today, hymns act like vessels containing fragments of Christian thought.
They excel at praising God for being God - and at reminding believers that we are
not God.
Grant affirms
hymnody's ability to help shape personal and collective identity. They
reconnect her, she says, to simpler times growing up in Nashville, Tenn., as a
young musician soaking up like a sponge whatever church music she could find.
"It's like going to a family reunion," she says. "You might not
want to go at first; but once you're there and you start hearing stories, it's
pretty amazing. You realize these stories are part of who you are." Hymns
remind us, Grant says, that "this experience of faith is so much broader
and deeper than what is before us today."
Following up her
2002 project, Legacy... Hymns & Faith (Word), Grant will release her
second hymns record this spring. She says this project consists of songs she
sang growing up in the Church of Christ tradition. "These hymns mean a
whole lot more [to me today], having lived a lot of life," Grant says.
"Even though I loved these hymns at 18, I feel today like my soul just
breathes a deep 'Amen' to all of it now."
A FIRM FOUNDATION
On
"Precious Lord, Take My Hand," from Ashley Cleveland's recent
February release, Men and Angels Say (Rambler), the blues-inspired licks
of a lone steel guitar make known this isn't what grandma remembers of Dorsey's
famous text. Likewise, Cleveland's gospel-arranged "What A Friend We Have
in Jesus" shuns sentimentality, replacing it with a stout spirit for
celebrating, "Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in
prayer."
Cleveland
speaks convincingly about hymnody's powerful draw to God. She remembers leafing
through hymnals as a child who didn't want to be in church. Years later, as an
adult, those words would thankfully return to her, "I grew up in the
Presbyterian church; but then over time, my life got as far from the church as
a person can get, and I ended up being fairly strung out on alcohol and
drugs," Cleveland says. "But the thing that would happen to me when I
was very, very ill - these songs would come to me at the strangest moments."
"It was like
a reminder that there was a God who loved me. It seemed to me that He was
calling me back to Him," she continues. "These songs have pierced my
soul in a way that no other music ever has touched me."
Near her Franklin,
Tenn., home Cleveland now attends a Presbyterian church that blends modern
worship music with church hymns, and she hopes other churches will try that
approach. But Cleveland aims, too, to find inroads into places where these
songs aren't typically heard. "I still play clubs on occasion, and the
audiences are decidedly mixed, believers and non-believers, people from all
walks of life," she describes. "I have yet to go in and play my
set - which is always going to include at least a couple of hymns - and not have
someone come up to me to specifically comment on a hymn. More often than not, I
have people come up to me in tears, saying, 'I haven't heard that song in
years,' telling me briefly that it was a connection for them."
FAITH AND HOPE
As
hymns connect us to our past, they provide a shared language across
denominational and cultural lines. To that end, these works help shape visions
for transforming the future. While traveling internationally [thus making a
face-to-face interview and participation in CCM's cover story photo shoot impossible]
Out of Eden's Lisa Kimmey tells via e-mail about the trio's experience at a
Focus On the Family chapel service. "We sang a couple of hymns; and, all
of a sudden, it was forgotten that we are a pop/R&B group," she says.
"Our ethnicity, gender and style didn't seem to matter anymore. There was
something very special about being able to communicate without
expectation."
The experience set
Lisa and her sisters, Andrea Kimmey Baca and Danielle Kimmey, down a path
toward creating a present-day record grounded in shared experiences. Crowing
up, Lisa says she remembers singing classics like "Praise to the Lord, the
Almighty" and "Fairest Lord Jesus," each recorded for Out of
Eden's March 29 release, Hymns (Gotee). Though she and her sisters grew
up in a charismatic church that didn't sing hymns often, the women were exposed
to hymns through their grandparents' African Methodist Episcopal church in
Richmond, Virginia.
"We used to
visit, and I remember my grandmother, an opera singer, singing in the choir, praising
God with songs I had never heard before. They had very traditional harmonies
and music, but I remember even as a child thinking it was all very grand and
beautiful."
Musically, Hymns
finds the group skillful at creating innovative praise & worship, R&B
and pop arrangements, sprinkling influences from Al Green (as on the
Psalm-inspired "Be Still, My Soul") and Andraé Crouch ("To God
Be the Glory"). Lisa, who produced and arranged the project, found a
common thread that boosted Out of Eden's work. "Worship is what is done to
please and bring glory to God," she says. And of her research to select
hymns, she comments, "I discovered a simplicity and purity in the writers'
motives that is very inspiring to me. There is no sarcasm, no cool, idiomatic
expressions - just a human heart reaching out to God in desperation for
inspiration."
ROOTS AND WINGS
To
shape their emerging faith, college students and young adults are recovering
church traditions, including hymns, to boost the authenticity of their Christian
experience.
At
the four-day Passion '05 event held earlier this year in Nashville, 11,000
college students gathered across denominational lines to pray and worship.
Among the inevitable praise choruses were historical selections such as
"How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace" and "Phos
Hilaron" ("hail gladdening light"). Each was sung in full voice
to modern tunes, according to recent college grad Lane Wood, a spokesperson for
the event.
"Hymns remind us that this [worship and faith]
isn't a new thing. People have been worshiping God for years and years,"
says Lane, who works with students at a Murfreesboro, Tenn., Baptist church.
Like Cleveland, he advocates a mix of hymns and praise choruses, benefiting not
only students but also to promote multigenerational worship.
Back on campus, students search for authentic
experiences to validate faith. For almost 100 Reformed University Fellowship
groups across the country, hymns are increasingly keeping students company on
the journey. The Rev. Kevin Twit serves as the RUF campus minister at Belmont
University in Nashville and produces the grassroots-driven "Indelible
Grace" series of independent recordings recasting hymns. Twit says loyal
listeners include evangelicals and mainline Christians all over. "I talk
about a sign my mom found at an antique store once: 'My grandmother saved it,
my mother threw it away and now I'm buying it back.' I think a lot of younger
people are feeling that, saying [the "Baby-Boomer" generation] handed
us Christianity with no connection to tradition."
To reconnect,
rising alternative worship forms tap into the early church practices.
Ancient-Future worship, championed by church scholar Robert Webber, finds
intersections between classical Christianity and postmodern thought, reviving
sacraments and liturgy. Emergent worship, described by author and pastor Dan
Kimball, goes a step further as a multisensory experience of old and new church
traditions. Add thinkers like Sally Morgenthaler (Worship Evangelism),
Brian McLaren (A Generous Orthodoxy), Spencer Burke (author/
theOooze.com creator) and others, and it's clear a new day dawns for Christian
worship. Hymns remain at the ready on the horizon.
"I wouldn't
say that it's a majority of college students that will connect with
hymns," Twit cautions, "but I do think that the people who connect
with them are going to be the movers and shakers and the influencers of the
coming generation."
Rev. Twit recalls
a group of college-aged leaders he met nearly 10 years ago, men who yearned to
dig deep into worship to discover God's character. Now, those men - Jars of
Clay - are releasing Redemption Songs: A Collection of Reinvented Ancient
Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Essential) on March 22 as their unique
contribution to the current worship music conversation.
"This is our
experience in worship," Jars' frontman Dan Haseltine explains. "This
album represents songs important to the way the gospel is moving and shaping
us."
Guitarist Matt
Odmark agrees. "One reason I feel really connected to hymns is that I feel
they are written for basically good people who need a way to express how much
they love God," he says. "That's me-people who have limped into
church knowing they really don't deserve much from God."
The
image we kept tossing around while making the record was the idea of roots and
wings," keyboardist Charlie Lowell says, "digging into what's gone
before us and giving flight to these words through new melodies." This
generation of college students is looking for experiences that actually connect
with the heart and soul and the [core] of what true faith is, what the gospel
really means and how it gets played out in our lives," Haseltine says.
Hymns step up to that challenge.
Redemption Songs is signature Jars of
Clay and includes both familiar titles ("It Is Well With My Soul,"
"They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love") and the uncommon
ones, mined from hymnbooks ("Hiding Place, "O Come and Mourn With Me
Awhile"). Its theme points decidedly toward restoration through the life,
death and resurrection of Christ. Says guitarist Steve Mason, "We wanted
to serve well the people that enjoy what we do already, but, as well, we wanted
to be a bridge, turning people on to this art who maybe weren't familiar with
it or thought it was for people with gray or blue hair."
"With
these hymns, it's not that we've discovered a lost book of the Bible or that
there is hidden truth that couldn't be seen the first time,"
Odmark says. "But we are constantly in need of having our eyes
opened to these things that have been true all along, and hymns do that."
Inspired by a poem, hymn writer Paul Gerhardt wrote, "What
language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend?"
Indeed, how do we find words to express our great joy? Or
expressions that kick at the darkness of uncertainty and despair? Hymns, like
Psalms, give us words we cannot find on our own. And in times of war or in
times of peace, we lean on hymns like theological poetry, allowing us to sit
steadily and with hope in the mystery of all that might come our way. ccm
Articles / Artikel : CCM magazine March 2005