Rejoice -- Ben Shive, Bryan Fowler, Keith + Kristyn Getty, Skye Peterson

 

What began as an inspiration from an anonymous author, and from a time over two or three millennia ago, coalesced into something broader with the help of five 21^st Century songwriters. The home of Keith and Kristyn Getty was the scene (see the map of County Londonderry made in 1837, with Portstewart, where the Gettys live, shown outlined in a blue circle) where this pair had invited three others – Ben Shive, Bryan Fowler, and Skye Peterson – to work out a new song they simply entitled “Rejoice”. It’s a theme that not only the original psalmist captured in six short verses of poetry, but which was also picked up by a 1^st Century writer who knew all about this emotional context even if it stood in stark contrast to his own circumstances. Even the Creator Himself would say that praise and rejoicing must be heard, lest the rocks (stones) cry out instead (Luke 19:40).

 

Bryan Fowler first suggested the theme of rejoicing to the group assembled in Northern Ireland, and it quickly stirred the imaginations of the rest of the group (sometime either in, or in the months preceding 2022). Bryan had evidently been reading what the ancient and unknown psalmist had written, and which we now call Psalm 150, especially verse six that is the capstone of the psalms. Bryan’s spark had already allowed him to concoct a chorus based on Psalm 150:6, and the others, especially Kristyn, felt that this spirit of praise was not something based on one’s comfortable conditions, and in fact should ring out despite what someone was experiencing. The apostle Paul’s Philippians 4:4 message to ‘Rejoice!’ spoke to them collectively. These five could not have missed that Paul’s exclamation came though he was experiencing imprisonment at the time. They acknowledged amongst each other that ‘sing(ing) the bible’ meant that anxieties we humans endure, particularly among young people, cannot be ignored. Indeed, that’s where the Christian truths come into play, so that people look upward to recall Jesus’ promises, to pray for one another, to be thankful to Him in all things, and to offer praise as a sign of courage and trust. Their lyrics especially echo what the psalmist and Paul spoke so that others would follow, though difficulties intrude on one’s joy – ‘…be anxious for nothing’ (v.2), ‘the dark cannot destroy’ (v.3), and ‘…throughout every season’ (chorus), we all have reason to lift up a shout of rejoicing. Some might even call ‘Rejoice’ an anthem, something we use to re-center ourselves daily, to remind us that He is worthy and should be the focus of our beings.

 

The Gettys, Bryan Fowler, Ben Shive, and Skye Peterson would be the first to admit that they had recorded something in ‘Rejoice’ that was not new. And yet, the number of times that this refrain is repeated in the bible’s pages underscores that what they have produced musically is reflective of what God wants us to never forget. Run a search in your own bible app for forms of the words rejoice and praise…it should be constantly on our lips, if we recall His character and His actions for us. These five composers have not left those Godly character traits and the transport He gives as mysteries for us – ‘love’, ‘gentleness’, ‘goodness’ ‘grace’ (v.1); that He is ‘peace’, a ‘shepherd’, and ‘reigns eternal’ (v.2); that He gives us ‘hope’ and ‘joy yet to come’ (v.3) – those are what He possesses and translates as offerings to you and me. How could you turn down such an offer?    

Read and hear the entire story of the song’s development here: The Story Behind: Rejoice

 

Read some brief comments about the song’s purpose (from Keith Getty) here: Keith & Kristyn Getty & Rend Collective – Rejoice Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

 

See information on the map-graphic here: File:1837Londonderry.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. {{PD-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States. This map-graphic may be found inside this article: County Londonderry - Wikipedia

I Want to Know Christ – Paul, and Gerald Moore

 

Was he thinking of making his words into a song? Paul, the apostle of the Bible’s New Testament, certainly would have endorsed any system – like music – that aids memory retention of important things that one wants to implement as life strategies, like the declaration he made when he told a group of believers “I Want to Know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). This was an especially noteworthy assertion because Paul was under house arrest at the time, possibly in Rome (perhaps 61 A.D.), or maybe in either Ephesus (53-55 A.D.) or Caesarea (57-59 A.D.) (The picture, Saint Paul Arrested, was painted in the early 1900s [author Publisher of Bible Cards]). Would Paul have thought that the Greeks like Plato and Aristotle (who lived four or five centuries before himself) practiced something really useful for the Christian disciple to adopt, a memorization technique called Mnemonics? It might more certainly be said that Gerald Moore, a believer who helped popularize Paul’s words to the Philippian church, must have believed that this ancient Greek method was really valuable, since he borrowed it to create in 1991 his version of Paul’s prison-inspired words. Song-making is indeed one of His best gifts to us.

     

What would provoke a person to say something like what Paul voiced here – ‘bring it on, give it your best shot and make me suffer, just go ahead and kill me!’ Has the individual gone mad, beset by dementia, or else decided that suicide is his best option? One might say so, if Paul had not also included the part about ‘know(ing) Christ’, and more deeply ‘shar(ing)…’, and ‘conform(ing)’, and ‘ris(ing)’ in power like Him. One could look at this one-time enemy of Christ and say that he got what he had coming to himself; in fact, Jesus told Ananias, the first believer to encounter Paul (when he was still known as Saul), that this threat-breathing persecutor would be shown how much he needed to suffer for God’s name (Acts 9:16). In Paul’s many letters (Gal. 1:13-14; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15-16, and 1 Cor. 15:9), he comes across vividly as one who remembered his previous ways and still felt dogged with regret. He owed a lot, more than he could ever pay. And, the only way out was for him to offer the rest of himself in the service of Jesus’ cause. He saw his own life – hearkening to his Jewish roots – as a kind of drink offering that should be ‘poured out’ for his many sins (Philippians 2:17). Near the end of his life, Paul repeats this metaphor (2 Timothy 4:6), anticipating that his own demise and resurrection in the image of his Master was close at hand. Impossible, you say? Saul-Paul might have echoed this, had he not received the ‘fill(ing) with His Spirit’ through the ministering hands of Ananias (Acts 9:17). He never forgot how much damage he’d done, but he also never forgot how much he had received in his conversion, a story that he told at least two times, many years later in his life (Acts 22 and 26). Jesus’ words still rang like new in his ears. It was a life he couldn’t keep to himself, praying that others would likewise be filled in a powerful way with this same Spirit (Colossians 1:9), transforming the impossible into reality.

 

Gerald Moore enters the picture, some nineteen centuries later, with a tune that musically sums up Paul’s greatest purpose following his Damascus Road conversion. Nothing more than his name is known of Gerald. Is that intentional, so that the focus is on how to follow my ancient brother’s model, to be sculpted as a follower of the Holy Sacrifice, even as Paul was? Gerald was merely the conduit, as any believer is, of a Spirit who’s at work, doing something that takes years, even decades – as it did in Paul’s life – to be fully realized. Gerald may have been the arranger, the tune-writer, for what someone else already was singing – we just don’t know much about that part. If it was first sung around a campfire, as perhaps many folk melodies like this one were, an as yet anonymous soul must have also wanted what Paul had the insight and courage to say. Look deep inside his words…they’re more than a campfire song. Want to know Christ? Gerald helps remind us what Paul knew comes with this life goal.

 

See here for publication information about the song and its full text: Praise for the Lord (Expanded Edition) 864. I want to know Christ and the pow'r of His rising | Hymnary.org

 

See here for description of memory system called Mnemonics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

 

Information on Paul gleaned from the NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985.

 

See here for information on the picture showing Paul being arrested: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_arrested.jpg. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. {{PD-US}} – US work that is in the public domain in the US for an unspecified reason, but presumably because it was published in the US before 1929.

For All You've Done -- Clint Lagerberg

 

Just ask some country music performers in Nashville, and they will probably acknowledge that Clint Lagerberg is a talented songwriter and producer. But, if you mention only the name of his song “For All You’ve Done” in Christian songwriting circles, you might bump into a couple of songs by other writers (like Jason Ingram, and by Reuben Morgan at Hillsong) who’ve likewise used the same title that Clint employed for this praise to God. So, beware when you go hunting out there in web-land! Clint had some different and personal thoughts about why this God was so praiseworthy, so see if you can get what he’s driving at when he talks to God with words like ‘mess’, ‘cleanser’, and ‘crushed’…and that’s just in his first verse. What would motivate Clint to write these words, perhaps while in the confines of his Nashville studio? (See the seal for Nashville here.)

 

The short answer is ‘we don’t know’, when asked why Clint Lagerberg composed in 2002 the words and music to ‘For All You’ve Done”. But he holds nothing back in this confessional, so maybe we don’t really need a lot of stirring amplification that he could give us in an interview. The lyrics paired up with the music that Clint created are plenty provocative all on their own. ’I’m a screw-up’, he says, basically, with a ‘mess’ of a life that only a merciful God can clean up. This God elected to be ‘crushed by human hands formed from dust’ (v.1) -- dust that God Himself fashioned into that which would kill Him. Could any other words, thick with sad irony, better describe the surreal relationship between our Creator and you and me? One can hardly speak these words, let alone sing them, without a bittersweet taste in them. Clint’s feelings are not just his own, are they? Clint uses other words that are very evocative, and frankly not often heard in our songs. Clint says he has a ‘learning curve’ (v.2), an expression that has made its way into our lexicon only within the last 100 years or so, and a way for Clint to admit to God that even moderns like us haven’t figured out life’s challenges. Finally, Clint has a voice that cries out with ‘erode’ and ‘explode’(v.3), opposites really – one that says anxious feelings melt in upon themselves and vanish, while the other exclaims a redeemed sinner’s profound relief in a celebratory eruption. As Clint’s feelings throughout the song build to verse three’s crescendo, so does the believer’s life as it elapses and nears its conclusion. That’s worth remembering, as one becomes more and more aware of his mortality.

 

I cannot do more to fix all my past mistakes, especially as I get further away from them, and particularly the ones that sometimes bother my conscience, even decades later. If you’re reading this, does it sound familiar? There’s plenty of people I can visualize, characters whose error-prone ways could have doomed them. How conscious-stricken were Judas and Peter, two Apostles who made similar errors to disown Jesus in His last few days and hours before being executed. One wept bitterly and subsequently witnessed boldly for Christ, while the other could not live with his mistake…which one will you be like today? Later, Paul likewise was confronted with his gross errors, and called himself the chief sinner many years later. He could have sunk into a pit, never to emerge because of his former life as an ardent Jesus opponent and heralded Pharisee, and yet he let God work many wonders in and through him as he strained forward, instead of regretting by looking backward. (Philippians 3:4-14) I remember a friend, Jim Wilson, who had the same attitude in my lifetime, before he went to be with God in March 2018. Whose life speaks to you today? Does Jesus’ raised life say something that you can hear today?        

 

   

 

See here details on the song’s writer (Lagerberg), and the group (Point of Grace) that sings it here: Point Of Grace – For All You've Done Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

 

See here for an article about the songwriter: Featured SVS Producer: Clint Lagerberg - Music Producer & Songwriter (svsound.com)

 

See here for a description of one of the song’s more unique expressions. Learning curve - Wikipedia

 

The following notice was issued with the image of the Nashville seal: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1928 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.  File:Seal of Nashville, Tennessee.png - Wikimedia Commons