I Come Expecting Jesus -- John Chisum and Nancy Gordon

 

This songwriter had already traveled a pretty adventurous road in his career, and had had a chance to reflect on how he got to where he was in 1996. So, John Chisum must have thought a lot about God’s presence in his life, even when things for a short time looked pretty grim some 13 years earlier, and even before that really. He grew up in Memphis, but evidently by the mid-1990s was in or near Nashville (see the map-graphic here, with highlights Davidson County where Nashville is located) where his music career was in full swing. With the apparent collaboration of Nancy Gordon, they said “I Come Expecting Jesus” to those who would want to draw close to Jesus Christ, the way John remembers when he was a teenager and young adult trying to change his life trajectory. His desire for Jesus was really beyond any plan that John had scoped out, so we might conclude that we are hearing John saying something from deep inside a pit where he’d been as a young man. Access a moment when you were at the bottom, and realize God was there – that just might be the message that John and Nancy are communicating.

 

John Chisum’s experience as a Christian began when he was 18 years old, following an adolescence filled with alcohol and drug abuse, and needless to say he had had only some distant thoughts about God and being close to Him. But upon his acceptance of Christ’s lordship in his life (with the very significant influence of a woman named Lynn, who discipled John), John says that that moment was like the ‘epicenter’ of everything that proceeded forth from that time. His first response was to write a song, which evidently blossomed into an embryonic music career, though he was still was a youngster struggling to make his way in the Christian music industry. A brief homeless episode with his wife, after an expected ministry job fell through, was part of the life that John lived in late 1983 and early 1984 in Nashville, before God seemed to answer his prayer for a foot-in-the-door new beginning. God answered, and John’s career had its new start in Nashville. The lyrics of ‘I Come…’ indicate this is an obvious communion song, written in or about 1996, though the exact circumstances of its inspiration are not described by John or Nancy. And yet, being close to Jesus, and expecting Him to be with you no matter what the situation, is what John indicates has been the driving force in his life from that seminal moment – actually two moments, when he was 18, and then in his early-to-mid 20s -- in his young life going forward. During communion, isn’t that the pivotal moment in His life when believers are invited to meet His embrace most intimately, a time when He ate and drank with those 12 Apostles, shortly before his crucifixion? To read and hear just how momentous and difficult that time was for Him, especially in what transpired later in Gethsemane and then on the cross, is to appreciate how the holy God feels about us, and just how much He was willing to endure to draw us near to Himself.  

 

Eating His body and drinking His blood…that’s how close He wants you and me to be. Calling it ‘a holy moment’ would be offensive if it were anybody but the Divine One. And, for those of us who can recall  times when we were at our lowest points and calling out to Him for relief, that ‘mercy and grace’ that John Chisum and Nancy Gordon write in their lyrics are not just pretty, philosophical words. They are  filled with meaning almost beyond description. Communion transcends what happens here terrestrially, though I still remember those special times when I did indeed feel His care and guidance in my earthly circumstances. The communion song John and Nancy wrote reminds me that His reach in His own life overwhelmed what happened to Him as a mortal – God overcomes. Getting close to the One who has the power to overcome life – that’s pretty special.  

 

Read about one of the songwriters here: Spirit Soul Body | John Chisum

 

And, here: About – Nashville Christian Songwriters

 

And here: /life-work-with-john-chisum

 

Listen to Chisum’s life story in this podcast here: JOHN CHISUM: 40 Years of Music Making - Nashville Christian Songwriters

 

Very brief information about the secondary author-composer: Nancy — The Blessing Co.

 

See information on the map-image of Davidson County (where Nashville is) here, including the public domain status of the graphic: File:Map of Tennessee highlighting Davidson County.svg - Wikimedia Commons . The following statement is associated with the graphic re: its public domain status: I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

Because We Believe -- Nancy N. Gordon and Jamie Harvill

 

He looked intently at others whose worship he wanted to improve. And, Jamie Harvill also took a long look at himself in the same vein, feeling that something was missing and that what he and others had been saying musically for a long time lacked depth. This was something he also shared with a musical collaborator, Nancy Gordon, and together they dove deeper into the seeds of their shared faith. This self-examination and the resulting investigation allowed Jamie and Nancy to declare “Because We Believe”, an answer with many facets to the questions they had asked themselves to consider in 1997.

 

One very important building block of the multifaceted beliefs Jamie and Nancy discovered was summed up in a four-word line in the song and title of the booklet, To Jesus We Sing, which Jamie eventually authored some 20 years later (in 2016).  Incidentally, all the various locations or a single spot where Jamie sat, mulled over, and put together To Jesus We Sing would be difficult to sum up, but he was likely living on Alabama’s Gulf Coast in Mobile in 2016 (see graphic here). More broadly, how far back, and exactly where do all your beliefs and practices go for their original seeds of germination? Jamie’s booklet is concise, yet wide-ranging, and cites dozens – even hundreds, thousands, and probably countless characters – who set the tone across all history for that which we call ‘worship’ today. Jamie calls all of them and us pieces of the ‘Big Story’. Jamie and Nancy were after this historical perspective in their song, summed up in a short paragraph in the preface of Jamie’s booklet (p.8; also shown on his website – see link below). From Abraham and all of Old Testament history, through Jesus and the new covenant, and up through the 21 centuries since He ascended, some key ideas have endured. Those are the beliefs that Jamie and Nancy address. ‘God the Father’, ‘Christ the Son’, and the ‘Holy Spirit’ – this triune God, the inaugurators of ‘the church’ (v.1), are the foundation. Jesus is the center point of it all, echoed again and again in their song’s chorus, and also repeatedly in verses 2 and 3. Christendom’s history relies on these for sustenance – the ‘Holy Bible’, the ‘virgin birth’, the ‘resurrection’, and the hope of His ‘return to earth’; and further, the ‘blood of Jesus’ and that it ‘frees’ every believer unto ‘eternal life’, and into being Christ’s ‘bride’, a divine concept us earth dwellers admittedly don’t yet fully comprehend. There’s also fourth and fifth verses that are spelled out for the Christmas season, focusing the worshipper’s attention on the ‘King of kings’, a ‘newborn baby’, the ‘shepherd’s journey’, a ‘guiding star’, and a ‘humble manger’. Jamie’s last few words of his booklet’s preface (p.11) remind us that all believers throughout time have ached for a Jesus to whom we can sing, even though congregational singing lapsed for a period of some 1,000 years. That’s a stunning fact, underscoring the value of this that we call worship through song.

 

What Jamie says with his booklet’s few words is that my heart’s fullness overflows into song about the God who came to save me. There’s other ways to express my devotion to Him, but singing is uniquely capable of channeling my emotions. There’s a lot going on there, and it’s the genius of God who gives His created ones this tool that fuses notes, chords, other sounds, poetry, and so many intangibles into a piece of artwork. It would be tempting to worship the song or the earthly composer as we ponder a song’s intricacies. Lest we think that today’s worship music is comparatively bursting with imagination and energy while earlier periods were dull, Jamie’s booklet tells me that music and worship to Him has accumulated lots of momentum by 2022. I and my contemporary worshippers are riding a huge wave -- the Big Story. Are you content to merely spectate in this Big Story? How about joining in?  

 

See the following: To Jesus We Sing, by Jamie Harvill; Wyatt House Publishing; Mobile, Alabama 2016.

 

See here a concise description of one author’s books: https://jamieharvill.com/books/

 

See one author’s information here: https://jamieharvill.com/about/

Firm Foundation -- Nancy Gordon and Jamie Harvill

Disappointment. One might even say it was bitter disappointment. But, ‘out of the ashes’…as one has said before. Nancy Gordon and Jamie Harvill might even say upon reflection that Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone (see an early advertisement here for one), played a remote role in “Firm Foundation” that the two of them first spoke to each other over a telephone line in 1994. Was this the first time a song was conceived over the phone? Perhaps not, but what they had expected to happen a few days earlier could not have been more different than what actually transpired, so having an unforeseen method for this song’s development was actually in tune with events. Do you and I know how our Creator is always working, and am I ready to be His tool? What do you think Nancy and Jamie might say after you hear their story?

Where were Nancy Gordon and Jamie Harvill exactly on that day in 1994 when they commiserated with each other on the telephone? Perhaps each had returned home (in Alabama for Nancy, and California for Jamie), to figuratively lick their wounds. It’s a bit of conjecture, but since they chose to talk on the phone, we can imagine that they weren’t in close geographic proximity. Nancy relates that they had been saddened to learn that a song they’d written together (‘Belle of the Ball’) would not be part of an album. They’d thought, because of the reaction of the recording artist when she heard the song for the first time, that their collaborative effort was about to bear fruit. This was their profession, and the song was their initial expedition on this musical partnership, after all, so dejection was not unreasonable, from a human standpoint. But Nancy relates that she’d been buoyed during her reading that morning of a bible verse about ‘living hope’, and then the mutual affirmation about their long-term prospects took off, as they deflected the gloom that had been present. Words like ‘I have a future’ were soon consoling them as they talked, and they both confessed that they had placed too much confidence in a song, rather than in God.  What Nancy says indicates she’d been reading what one or two apostles had written (1 Peter 1:3, and 2 Timothy 2:19). From what the two of them say, they were soon sharing bible verses back and forth, and the song was nearly completed during that phoneline discussion, a time that was like ‘a volleyball game of encouragement’. A couple of other moments later on helped put a wrapper on this song, but the phone conversation is what stands out to Nancy and Jamie. As is so often true of something really special, a unique coalescence of events, as well as the inspiration of a couple of apostles (Peter and Paul), must be credited with creating ‘Firm Foundation’. Who makes events happen this way?

How’s He work? If you ask Nancy and Jamie, they might say the first song they wrote really was meant to be a failure and a launching pad for something better. He can make a washout into a success, and even more. He’s got a handle on things, and perhaps He is most providential when he takes me by surprise. That’s worth a bible study isn’t it? See how often he does what people think makes no earthly sense. As someone has said, ’faith is believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse’ (Philip Yancey, in The Question That Never Goes Away, p. 48). And, He doesn’t sit back and ask us to do/believe without going there Himself. He went somewhere and did something that confused everyone at the time… Tap into His ‘failure’, and see if it stays that way for you.        

Song story source is at this link: http://newhopemusic.com/FCSongwriters/FCSJamieHarvillFF.htm

Also see the story here: https://books.google.com/books?id=0dVKKd5HOb0C&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=nancy+gordon+songwriter&source=bl&ots=GLIy9m9bSf&sig=ACfU3U37Pvl6BjicSeVC28aOdHjJKsWgAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilzLTNke3pAhUEhHIEHWw2CIMQ6AEwCHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=nancy%20gordon%20songwriter&f=false