Stories behind the songs - April 15, 2007

Dear Friends,
I look forward to our time together this Sunday – to give you taste of what is to come, here is a list of the songs we’re singing with some background information on each song. I think if you spend some time reading about the history of the songs, it will give you deeper understanding of each song.

We’ll begin with a scripture reading by Katie Hiles

Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

“Before the throne of God above” I had heard this song on the radio and was reintroduced to the song when I had the opportunity to visit the Village church in Flower Mound on Palm Sunday evening here is link to the words http://www.inchristalone.org/BeforeTheThrone.html . I love the verse that says “For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me”. The song was written by Charitie Lees Smith Bancroft in 1863, but was recently published by Vikki Cook who wrote an alternate melody for it. You can hear the old version by clicking here. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/e/beforetg.htm
You’ll recognize the tune as “Sweet hour of Prayer”

“My God Lives” – We do this song a lot, but I love how it paints the picture of the gospel. This song was originally recorded at Fellowship Church in Grapevine. My favorite line is “He went to the cross for my sins and in three days He rose again, and on His throne He reigns for eternity”

“Witness” This song is a spiritual, you can find it on several spiritual recordings. Here is a link to some alternate words. http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/witness_for_my_lord.htm I find it interesting that different arrangements include different verses of biblical characters in the bible – Great song!

“Saved, Saved” This gospel song is based on the verse in Psalm 116:6 “When I was in great need, He saved me”. Written by Jack Scholfield in 1911 you can hear a recording of the song here http://www.sermonaudio.com/hymn_details.asp?PID=savedsaved

“Your Love Oh Lord” this song was written by the group “THIRD DAY”. Wow! Here is a link to a music video of Third day singing the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG4X17jgkC8 The song is from the album “Offerings”, great imagery used in this song.

“Jesus, Paid it All” This is a new arrangement of the old hymn, based on the recording from the Passion album “Everything glorious”. It adds a new line “O praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead”.
Here’s a story about the song: the words were written by Elvina M. Hall and the music by John T. Grape

On New Year’s night, 1886, some mis­sion­ar­ies were hold­ing open-air serv­ic­es in or­der to att­ract pass­ers­-by to a near-by miss­ion, where meet­ings were to be held later. “All to Christ I owe” was sung, and af­ter a gen­tle­man had giv­en a short ad­dress he hast­ened away to the miss­ion. He soon heard foot­steps close be­hind him and a young wo­man caught up with him and said:
“I heard you ad­dress­ing the open-air meet­ing just now; do you think, sir, that Je­sus could save a sin­ner like me?”
The gen­tle­man re­plied that there was no doubt about that, if she was anx­ious to be saved. She told him that she was a serv­ant girl, and had left her place that morn­ing after a dis­a­gree­ment with her mis­tress. As she had been wan­der­ing about the streets in the dark, won­der­ing where she was to spend the night, the sweet mel­o­dies of this hymn had at­tract­ed her, and she drew near and listened at­tent­ive­ly. As the dif­fer­ent vers­es were be­ing sung, she felt that the words sure­ly had some­thing to do with her. Through the whole serv­ice she seemed to hear what met her op­pressed soul’s need at that mo­ment. God’s Spir­it had showed her what a poor, sin­ful and wretch­ed crea­ture she was, and had led her to ask what she must do. On hear­ing her ex­per­i­ence, the gen­tle­man took her back to the mis­sion and left her with the la­dies in charge. The young, way­ward woman was brought to Christ that night. A si­tu­a­tion was se­cured for her in a min­is­ter’s fam­i­ly. There she be­came ill and had to be tak­en to a hos­pi­tal. She ra­pid­ly failed and it became ev­i­dent that she would not be long on earth. One day the gen­tle­man whom she had met on New Year’s night was vis­it­ing her in the ward. Af­ter quot­ing a few suit­a­ble vers­es of Script­ure, he re­peat­ed her fa­vo­rite hymn, “All to Christ I owe”…and she seemed over­whelmed with the thought of com­ing to glo­ry…Two hours af­ter­ward she passed away.

“The Lord’s Prayer” This great arrangement of the Lord’s prayer or model prayer was written by Albert Hay Mallotte. Mallotte composed a number of film scores, including mostly uncredited music for animatinos from the Disney studios, for more information check out this link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hay_Malotte