Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing

Last night, I had the privilege of leading a unique kind of experience to open this year’s 120th annual St. Louis Campmeeting:  an “old-fashioned hymn sing.”  Pastor Jim Sirks (from Battle Creek) and I played our guitars to accompany a crowd of over 100 that gathered in the old tabernacle on the St. Louis campgrounds.  This event kicked off the campmeeting in stellar fashion, and I’d like to share a few reflections with you about the evening.

hymnal4In the Church of God, we have a diverse collection of songs.  For this event, I selected sixteen of our “heritage hymns,” songs written by some of the earliest people in our movement.  I grouped these sixteen into four groups of four, each group revolving around a different theme:  Songs of Praise, Songs of Gratitude, Songs of Testimony, and Songs of Commitment.  There may be other types of songs in our heritage, but even these four groups reveal a wide variety of songs in our tradition that can be used for any occasion.  (By the way, we sang all the verses of all sixteen songs, and the whole event lasted only an hour.)

In the Church of God, we have people who can sing four part harmony.  The acoustics of the old tabernacle – a small, open-air, wooden building with lots of hard surfaces – added to the musical experience produced by two acoustic guitars and a hundred voices.  These were songs that people knew and wanted to sing.  And many sang the parts (alto, tenor, bass) they have learned and have known for many years.  Singing in harmony is a gift from God, and it does something spiritually to connect people together in worship.  Worship (including but not limited to singing) is a communal activity, something we do together and not alone.  (Remember that electronic amplification is less than a century old – newer than many of the songs we sang last night!)

In the Church of God, we sing what we believe.  In late 19th Century America, church music was an instructional tool that helped people learn the contours of our faith.  So much of our early heritage music contains a tremendous amount of theology.  While we did not reflect on the theology of all sixteen songs last night, I did highlight one hymn in particular:  “The Bond of Perfectness” by D.S. Warner.  One of my seminary professors, Dr. Gil Stafford (previously pastor of East Ashman Church of God in Midland), once said that this was the epitome of Church of God theology in lyrical form, because it blends together our understandings of holiness and unity so beautifully:

How sweet this bond of perfectness, the wondrous love of Jesus;
A pure foretaste of heaven’s bliss, oh, fellowship so precious!

Refrain:
Oh, brethren, how this perfect love unites us all in Jesus!
One heart, and soul, and mind we prove the union heaven gave us.

Oh, praise the Lord for love divine that binds us all together;
A thousand chords our hearts entwine, forever and forever.

“God over all and in us all,” and through each holy brother;
No pow’r of earth or hell, withal, can rend us from each other.

Oh, mystery of heaven’s peace! Oh, bond of heaven’s union!
Our souls in fellowship embrace, and live in sweet communion.

These reasons, and several more, are why I am committed to having us sing at least one of our heritage hymns in each of our Sunday morning worship services.  Which are your favorites?

–Pastor David

The Institution of the Church

What does the title of this article mean to you?  Does it bring to mind any images, people, or customs?  Does it evoke feelings in your heart, either positive or negative?  Or is it a foreign term to you because of the vagueness of the term “institution”?

When I use the phrase “the institution of the church,” I am referring to the necessary structure that develops among Christians of similar theology, history, and practice.  Let me unpack that a little bit:

photo by foje64
photo by foje64
  • “Necessary structure”:  Just as people gather to live in neighborhoods, villages, towns, cities, regions, and nations, so do all human organizations.  Any organization, if it is going to maintain its identity and purpose, must develop some kind of structure to keep itself going into the future.  Over the course of time, the earliest Christians developed a structure to keep themselves afloat in the world; today, we call this structure the Roman Catholic Church.  Even our brand of Christian faith, the Church of God Reformation Movement, has developed structures and systems that support the identity and purpose of this movement.  That development began back in the 1910s and really flourished during the mid-1900s.
  • “Similar theology, history, and practice”:  Christian groups vary widely in these three categories, and perhaps others.  But when believers have these in common, they tend to stick together.  They have campmeetings and conventions; they have unity services and missionaries; they trade pastors and, all too often, church people.  They might even work together on joint projects, like we did in Guatemala with Meridian Church of God earlier this year, and like we did with two other Church of God congregations for the Global Gathering last month.  The structures we develop support and protect our investments (material and spiritual) in our beliefs, our shared history, and our shared experiences.

This is all well and good.  But many people today have been driven away from God because of the problems in the institution of the church – whatever its label.  And this isn’t good.  In our humanness, we create issues that cause people to turn away from God.  We argue among each other; we criticize those who disagree with us on political issues.  We discriminate against those who aren’t like us; we harbor jealousy of those who are successful.  We distrust those in power; we fail to consider the needs of “the least of these.”  And all these things can occur within one particular church group – I know, because I have seen them in the Church of God itself!

Yet I do not run away.  I remain committed to the Church of God (and to the Mt. Haley congregation in particular) because I believe in the Church of God’s theology, history, and practices.  I find the institution frustrating at times, but I also find it incredibly valuable because it connects me to something bigger than myself.  And at the same time, I constantly work to remember that the Church of God is connected to something bigger than itself as well.  We speak openly about salvation, unity, and holiness with Christians in our own fellowship and those in other backgrounds.  We do so because we share “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5-6 NIV) and we take seriously Jesus’s prayer that we might all be one (John 17:22-23).

With all this in mind, I invite you to read two more articles, these written by good friends of mine, Joe Watkins and Jael Tang.  They are two of my “people” – the group I’ve mentioned to you before, my seminary friends who form for me a special community of support, inspiration, and challenge.  Please take a few minutes to read what they have to say; I promise it’s worth your time.

Read Joe’s blog here: http://www.noggingrande.com/2013/07/10/three-reasons-its-cool-to-love-the-institution-of-the-church/

Read Jael’s blog here: http://akandatang-luke5.blogspot.com/2013/07/where-we-come-from-institution-and.html

–Pastor David