Ring Out the Message -- James Rowe

James Rowe had expressed his feelings about his faith in other songs, but as he thought about the life he’d led, he must have thought he needed to say something more directly to those he called his spiritual family. “Ring Out the Message”, this 40-something Irishman exhorted. Don’t keep this news to yourself, he declared in 1911, even as you meet other nationalities or travel abroad. Get the attention of those within earshot with something like a ringing bell (like this one from Scotland, near Rowe’s native country). Indeed, was he thinking about his homeland, even after two decades of life thousands of miles from there? He’d jumped more than once between professional directions in the previous two-plus decades, and that must have painted his outlook in some way, too. Maybe he saw more clearly what was really meaningful, something worth underscoring for himself and others as he thought about how to spend the next phase of his life. What is paramount?

James Rowe had been through his share of life changes by the time his 46^th year rolled around and he penned the words of “Ring Out the Message” (also known as “There’s a Message True and Glad”, the poem’s first line). From working for Ireland’s government, to travelling to America to work in the railroad industry in New York, and then switching gears once more to become an inspector in the Humane Society in his adopted state and country, Rowe had not been beholden to any particular vocational calling by the time he wrote “Ring Out..”. But he must have written plenty of lyrics for hymns by this time -- over 2,600 are credited to him over his prolific life – that proclaimed where his true allegiance lay. It’s said that James eventually worked (sometimes using the pseudonym James S. Apple) for music publishing companies in Tennessee and Texas, an indication that he ultimately did put more stock into his faith’s musical calling professionally. It’s not known what compelled Rowe especially to ‘ring out’ the Christian message in 1911, but it wouldn’t be surprising if his life’s changes had brought to light more clearly faith’s importance – its firm hold – for him. Did others around him not have this anchor, unlike himself? Were there people he still knew in Ireland to whom he called out--‘o’er land and sea’ (song’s refrain)? Or, maybe he knew ‘needy ones’ (verse 2) where he lived who needed the ‘true and glad’ news (verse 1). Who doesn’t?           

James Rowe really thought the ringing ought to be a happy sound, didn’t he? That presumption directs those of us who know the news where to look. Who needs a boost? James already tells us…sad (verse 1), needy, even destitute (verse 2) beings, and yes, those who sense the guilt of their wrongdoing too (verses 1 and 3). It’s shouldn’t be hard to find the dejected, though sometimes they’re well-insulated, maybe distracted. Hey, maybe if I shouted and laughed out loud more often, they’d wanna see what is so much fun! I have a co-worker whose college football tradition is to ring a cowbell really loud when his team scores. (I think it’s a Mississippi thing). Maybe that’s the mental approach…turn on the news channel, and leave it on as if it’s your most thrilling football game. Ring that bell a little louder.

See following for brief biographies of composer:

 http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/r/o/w/rowe_j.htm

http://www.hymnary.org/text/theres_a_message_true_and_glad

There Is a Redeemer -- Melody Green

A redeemed hippie. That’s what someone might have said about Melody Green in the mid-1970’s. Along with much of the rest of her generation, Melody seemed to effervesce when she had found the truth, magnified by the polar opposite life she had been living. “There is a Redeemer” that she wrote by 1977, including the third verse by her husband Keith, was a pretty simple expression of the Greens’ discovery. That probably explains its wide popularity. Maybe the way the third verse and its writer’s destiny played out just a few years after its composition helps explain the song’s reach too. Some might say Keith Green was being apocalyptic, perhaps even seeing the four horsemen in the Apocalypse (see the picture).

Melody’s path to “There Is a Redeemer” was anything but direct, and even after its composition, there would be unexpected events that gave fresh meaning to its words. She’d grown up in the Jewish faith of her parents and grandparents, the latter of whom were survivors of the persecution in tsarist Russia. Despite her respect for their influence upon her early life, in her teens and early 20’s Melody tried Buddhism in Japan on the heels of experimentation with drugs in California, as she searched for fulfillment and something that could be termed genuine. She met Keith, her husband in 1972, and they mutually sought the faith they felt must be out there, finally grasping it in 1975 during a bible study. In the aftermath of the discovery, Melody and Keith started something that continues today, called Last Days Ministry (LDM), an outreach to the drug culture, to unwed teenage mothers, and to their neighborhood too. It was in the midst of this in 1977 that Melody penned the words to the song that has become so well-known. Its message was straightforward – Jesus is God’s present to the world, and He also left the Spirit to continue what the Son started. Keith wrote the third verse, unknowing that its words would have what some might call an eerie ring to them just a few years hence, a call to imagine the eternal future. In 1982, with their family life, LDM, and Keith’s music career blossoming, a tragic event—a plane crash—snuffed out the life of Keith and two of the Greens’ children.  …Last Days Ministry, ‘life is short, make it count’ the website of this organization the Greens started says. One wonders if that motto buoyed Melody during that heart-rending period in 1982.

LDM is still active today, carried along perhaps by the memory of the song’s truth contained in its final verse. You just never know when your eternity will become fact, perhaps something that Keith Green would tell us if he were here today. Oh, I guess he did say it today after all…it’s in the verse he wrote in 1977. Am I listening to what I’ve been singing…?   

The source for the song story is “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.

Also see the following links for biographies of the composer: http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/authordetail.php?aut_id=431

http://www.lastdaysministries.org/Groups/1000008704/Last_Days_Ministries/Melody_Green/Bio/Bio.aspx

Also see the following site for background on a ministry the composer began: http://www.lastdaysministries.org/

Thank You, Lord - Gary Mabry

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)


What’s your favorite holiday? Lot’s of people say Christmas, because of the gift-giving, or maybe because of the spirit it engenders. Others pick Halloween, especially if they like handing out candy to kids standing at the door in adorable costumes. Maybe it’s one of the patriotic days, and the holiday from work that you really relish. I know I like holidays because it’s then that I get to do what I like – sleep in a little and skip the traffic! How would it work, though, if you were ordered to take a holiday to do something you don’t really like to do, or told to do something you’re not good at? Consider Ebenezer Scrooge, that thankless Christmas-time curmudgeon who was finally compelled to be kind. We think of him usually just in December, but maybe his story would also fit well at Thanksgiving, whaddya think? The ultimate complainer converted at Thanksgiving…yeh, that would be poetic justice, right?  I have to admit, I have lots of reasons to be happy and grateful, but too often I’m forgetful about expressing my thanks sincerely…I’m Scrooge. If that’s you too, Gary Mabry has written us a song to remind us of gratitude, to draw this emotion out of us. He also shares how he came to compose this tune, and how God uses unlikely people to teach us profound truth.

Gary Mabry spent his high school and college-age years in Abilene, Texas, where he met Stanley Shipp, a Christian missionary who became a link to Gary and the song “Thank You, Lord”, though probably neither of them suspected how this would come about in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After his conversion to Christ, Mabry continued to grow in the Lord’s work at his local church in Abilene, becoming a song leader and then youth director through Stanley Shipp’s encouragement. Although Shipp moved to St. Louis to start a campus ministry, he and Mabry kept in touch. Gary sometimes was the song leader during National Youth Outreach Campaigns that Shipp organized, and on one trek to St. Louis Mabry began to write “Thank You, Lord”. In Mabry’s own words …” One of the men from Abilene who moved to St. Louis to work with Stanley Shipp was a cerebral palsy victim (although he never considered himself to be a “victim”) by the name of Robert Reid. … I drove Robert from Abilene to St. Louis as he relocated. He was such a positive, fun and funny person….His spirit gave new meaning to thankfulness to God. …I began to have an idea for a song and jotted down the words and melody on a pad I kept close by. Robert was the first person to hear it…” If he didn’t know it before, perhaps Mabry had discovered something about how God translates a song to a composer. Could it be that the Creator places special people – like Robert Reid - in one’s way to spur and craft something unique, something extraordinary and long-lasting?

God is bountiful. However, sometimes, given my circumstances, I could easily curse and wonder ‘where’s God’s blessings in my life?’Robert Reid could have brought gloom, but instead he brought cheer to others – was that providential? Mabry’s first verse in the song tells me to thank God for “making me whole”. It must have been something to hear Robert sing those words, and know he counted on God to make them true. Mabry’s song and its story remind me that our Father’s “whole” gift comes in heaven, and in an unexpected way here on earth too. I need to find people who have little, seemingly, but who still manage to smile. They have what I often lack, although to the secular world the opposite appears true. “Thank You, Lord” communicates something elemental about my God and me. If I dwell on the essentials – Godly love, His blessings, and the full life He promises here and in Eternity – I have all I need. My frown turns upside down, I cast off Scrooge, as I think upon the song’s message, and let its music indwell me. Thank the Lord for Gary Mabry, for Robert Reid and Stanley Shipp, and the musical Spirit that collaborated on this song!

The above story was acquired via an e:mail with Gary Mabry on 3/31/2009, and through his association with the University of Texas at San Antonio gary.mabry@utsa.edu.

God of This City - Bluetree

Urban blight…crime…drug gangs…slums…prostitution. Could you ever imagine feeling positive about this kind of existence? Would you have dared to live in Sodom and Gomorrah, or maybe Nineveh? The characters we read about in the Old Testament who visited those diseased places were repulsed too …after all, who wants a mob pounding on your door, demanding you hand over your guests for gang rape (Lot’s quandary in Genesis 19) ? I’d have run away, wouldn’t any sane person? Who willingly goes to such places, especially after seeing the pictures of squalor? But, hold on! If you see the pictures of a contemporary Sodom-like city, it does look rather enticing. The travel guides know how to dress up a place like Pattaya Beach, Thailand (see the picture above). I wonder if the members of the Irish band Bluetree knew what awaited them when they prepared to visit Pattaya a few years ago. Bluetree -- the band’s name tells Christians to stand out from the crowd, like blue trees in a green forest – is from Belfast, Ireland. That was how the group’s lead singer Aaron Boyd says they must have appeared to a crowd in the “Climax Bar” – basically a brothel -- in Pattaya. After all, why would a group of Christians sing for two hours in such a place, and in a city of such infamous reputation, considered to be a world-renowned hub of the sex industry? Boyd admits he and his bandmates were leery of this proposition at first, but their powerful witness in the song “God of This City” came to them as they considered the city’s lifestyle and its poverty, afflicting the spirit as well as the daily life of its residents. You can read about their story and even see a video by Boyd, who tells of the experience in Pattaya, with these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetree http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXh_tgjnYJw http://www.experiencingworship.com/articles/reviews/2009-2-Bluetree-God-Of.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattaya Bluetree has not forgotten Pattaya. They are preparing to begin a charity in May 2009 called "Stand Out International", an effort to save kids from the sex industry. Boyd relates their attitude about themselves and the world about them, in an age when morbid news can desensitize even Christians …"you eventually grow so numb that when you hear that a car bomb killed 10 people, you immediately go on with the mundane business of the day without as much as giving it a second thought." Boyd doesn’t want his Christian message to stop at the stage, and Bluetree’s charity raises the bar for all of us. I can be like Lot, and try to live in my own cocoon inside an evil that will eventually claw at me. Or, will I be like Jonah, angry and dismissive of the depraved, wishing for their destruction? It's tough to be a lonely blue tree, but with others we might persuade to paint themselves this garish color, maybe we can turn the green forest into a brilliant sapphire.