I Sing Praises to Your Name -- Terry MacAlmon

 

He was praying. And spontaneously, a song came into his head and his heart as he was preparing for the worship service that was scheduled to take place in a few minutes. One Sunday evening in 1986 in his family’s new church home in Loveland, Colorado (See flag of Loveland here) was the scene for Terry MacAlmon, the time and place – but certainly not the only time and place for him, as a worship leader – that would spawn words like “I Sing Praises to Your Name”. Had he been reading from Psalms in the days and hours beforehand, so that some key phrases were lodged in his music-making spirit? Terry doesn’t try to answer that question, but he does recall that during that evening, it seemed as though his inner self still was searching and trying to determine if this song should really be shared. Its title does indicate it was an “I” song, so perhaps part of the uncertainty was a sensation that it should remain between the Lord and himself. But then, why did it come to him just before the service? Terry decided to let the Spirit lead, and look what happened.   

 

The song’s words were on the back of an envelope, a method that was not unlike what Terry had practiced before, since he usually kept an envelope in his bible to use as scratch paper. The difference in this 1986 episode was that all of the words came at once, rather than the 50-75% that he usually accomplished on-the-fly like this. No practice, no preparation at all – that’s how Terry approached that evening’s premier of ‘I Sing Praises…’. And so, he admits he felt a bit anxious, for the time he’d spent in a prayer room by himself was personal, and perhaps this little praise ditty was not quite ready. One can imagine, without too much speculation, that Terry’s role as a worship minister had him turning the pages of Psalms in his bible pretty often. The pages of that ancient songbook are replete with very similar phrases that Terry jotted on the envelope that evening in 1986. Had he looked at one or more of them (including Psalm 9:2; Psalm 18:49; Psalm 68:4, or others like 9:11; 47:7; 57:9; 59:17; 61:8; 71:22-23; 75:9; 92:1; 98:4; 108:3; 146:2; and 147:1), without really realizing that his own study time was gestating another, more contemporary version of what David and other Jewish psalmists had first penned? Whatever happened -- in the prayer room or during numerous study times in which he had likely engaged – new musical fruit was fully grown unexpectedly that night, with Terry as the vessel for it to fully ripen. They weren’t difficult words and music that Terry introduced that evening – bringing ‘praise’ (v.1), ‘glory’ (v.2), and ‘worship’ (v.3) to Him, because ‘His name is great, and greatly to be praised’. Perhaps in Terry’s reading of the Psalms, he saw the Lord’s praise fully developed already, and thus not really needing further adornment through his own hand. Terry’s song chorus is really more like an echo of what his musical forebearers had already expressed.

 

Keep scratch paper handy in your bible! Keep reading the Psalms. And, what the Spirit has led you to write, don’t hold back in sharing it. Those are three things that Terry might say he took away from his ‘I Sing Praises…’ experience. In the following months, Terry remembers that the envelope song eventually traveled to other nations around the world, an idea that he remembers he scoffed at when one of his praise band members told him that was his vision for the song’s use. So, something else that Terry might have gathered was this: God and even others around me can have more foresight than the guy penning the words and writing the music. He uses all of us, for His own – often inscrutable -- purposes. I don’t have to comprehend it all. He’s got you and me, so just latch onto Him for the ride!     

 

See the song story in the book Celebrate Jesus: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2003.

 

Also see the song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.

 

See information on the flag of Loveland here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Loveland,_Colorado.svg …This image of simple geometry is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship.