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/

Cornerstone -- Edward Mote, Eric Liljero, Jonas Myrin, Reuben Morgan

 

Some music lovers would probably have said that there’s a silver lining in this tragic episode. Reuben Morgan and his co-writers Jonas Myrin and Eric Liljero would probably actually say that the message of the “Cornerstone” song they collaborated to write was a lot more than a silver lining. This Divine One about whom they sang in 2011 was a God capable of turning things upside down, which is what believing people in Scandinavia, and indeed around the world, needed to help make sense of what had just happened. Senseless hate and death had hurting people searching for answers, as they pored over the heartbreaking news from Norway and two places where events had invaded; one was a place called Utoya Island (see a map/picture here, and note the red circle), a place where the infamy won’t soon be forgotten. Mercifully, it will however be outlived by the One we call Cornerstone.

 

Reuben Morgan tells the story of how ‘Cornerstone’ emerged in 2011, in the wake of a car bombing and a mass shooting in Norway. He relates (in a New Song Café telling of the story on 7/14/2016, see link below) that he was in Stockholm, Sweden just about the same time in July 2011 when terrorists killed 77 people in two places (one in Oslo, the capital; the other at a summer camp at Utoya Island), leaving people in shock, including kids who had been at the camp and saw their friends die. What could they do to help, Reuben and his friends Jonas Myrin (another songwriter) and Eric Liljero (worship pastor in Stockholm’s Hillsong Church) wondered. What made them think of the classic old hymn written by Edward Mote (My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less) is not known, except that they all thought its original words fit their circumstances and that this was the message people needed at that moment. They re-shaped the melody and added a new chorus to emphasize that Jesus is an anchor – a cornerstone -- who can be relied upon during times like that. These suffering Norwegians had just been in ‘the storm’, and certainly needed a ‘Lord’ who could turn the ‘weak’ into ‘strong’. Mote’s nearly two-centuries old poetry still had a balm for their aching hearts. ‘Hope’ in our world is based only on Jesus’ righteous act to spill His own blood for everyone else (v.1). ‘Darkness’ might seem to obscure even God’s visage at times like July 2011, but His ‘grace’ endures, no matter how fierce the storm, because Jesus is a firm ‘anchor’ (v.2). All believers can await the ‘trumpet sound’ with composure, since he transmits His own ‘righteous’ and ‘faultless’ attributes to each of us; we won’t stand before His ‘throne’ naked and vulnerable (v.3). He won’t let the ground crumble beneath us on that last eternal day, even if we might have felt like that was happening here on earth on July 22^nd, 2011. That indeed is a message with more that a sliver lining in it, even for those who experienced the numbing events in Oslo and on Utoya Island.   

 

Reuben emphasized that writing songs is ‘pastoral’ work, meaning that songs aren’t just composed to sound pretty in God’s ears and satisfy our internal temperaments. Instead, incidents like those of 22 July 2011 affect masses of people; Reuben shared that he thought lots of Norwegians knew people who were affected personally on that day. And so, songwriting has a purpose, to help the emotionally afflicted people trying to work and sing through what they were feeling about their faith. Reuben felt that hymns throughout history have been like that for believers. They speak of real life, gritty and ugly though it may be, with a beam of light shining through that gets larger and brighter as time elapses. That light will eventually envelope everything, except those that run instead for the darkness, like that in July 2011. Get ready with more songs to counter the darkness in our world. Reuben and company are doing their part, so let’s join them in this work!

 

See this link for an interview with one songwriter (Reuben Morgan) about this song: https://www.worshiptogether.com/songs/cornerstone-hillsong-worship/

 

Information on the 2011 attacks in Norway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Beautiful Things -- Michael and Lisa Gungor

 

Was it pre-natal depression syndrome, a diagnosis a doctor might have offered to reassure a young couple expecting a first child? That might have been what Michael and Lisa Gungor would have heard, had they actually been pregnant at the time, about a decade into the 21^st Century. Instead, there were lots of other events outside of themselves, assailing their emotions as they tried to make sense of it all. This was in the months before they wrote that some “Beautiful Things” do indeed inhabit the world their God has created. Had the mile-high altitude affected their minds earlier, in their new home in Denver (see its flag here)? The world was a mess, and lots of their friends also had reasons to doubt the goodness of God in their own personal crises, so Michael and Lisa were asking poignantly for God to break through. And, He did…or showed that He already had.

 

The multifaceted anxieties of Michael and Lisa Gungor met up with their faith part way through the first decade of the 21^st Century, and ‘Beautiful Things’ can be seen, more or less, as the ensuing discussion that this couple must have had with each other about all that was going on. War and poverty were on Lisa’s mind during that time, not to mention several friends who were having miscarriages. Was God trying to tell Michael and her that something was amiss? Was God even watching? The Gungors wanted to have children, and yet they couldn’t help feeling apprehensive about this world. It was Lisa who began to sort through it all, and a chorus emerged about how God makes some beautiful things, even ‘out of the dust’ of the ground. And since all of us flesh-and-blood beings come from that dust, He can make beautiful things ‘out of us’, too. One can imagine Lisa and Michael looking through Genesis, the very beginning, and reassuring themselves that the Creator knows what He’s doing. Other elements of human existence, which might seem dirty or unredeemable, can likewise be transformed with God’s influence. Nevertheless, I cannot initially see all that He sees, so my doubt coexists, for a time, with evidences of Him. ‘Pain’ (v.1), and even the ‘earth’ itself (v.2) are two concrete, doubt-inducing evidences that contest God’s goodness. These things don’t just surface occasionally, either. One might say that pain and all the other difficulties on planet Earth proliferate, threatening to suffocate what is good. So, you can hear those emotions in the Gungors’ verses, those misgivings that could choke out the courage through faith that we otherwise can have. A ‘garden’ and ‘hope’ are His gifts to us, to offset – or even re-make -- the alternatives that inhabit the ‘chaos’ and ‘lost’ things. He can ‘make me (and you) new’, a realization that perhaps hit Michael and Lisa most palpably months later when they had their first child, a life He made.

 

They admit that their daughter’s arrival helped speak to Michael and Lisa about Him, so that they could see other things with His fingerprints on them. He’s capable of creating, and re-creating, so He’s able to communicate hope to me, just by being who He is. Juxtapose that characterization of Him with what His opponent wants to do. You can find it all in your bible, if you choose to look. Peter said this noxious alternative to the Creator wants to ‘devour’ humanity (1 Peter 5:8). Satan is a tempter (Matthew 4:1-10), not even stopping with Jesus. He binds people in pain (Luke 3:16), is a liar and a source for others who lie (Acts 5:3), is a masquerade artist (2 Corinthians 11:14), and the source of injustice and ultimately the lawlessness that is to come at the end times (2 Thessalonians 2:9). But, He’s been beaten in eternity (Revelation 20), so what is your choice? You want to be with our Creator of beauty, or with the beaten in a fire pit?    

 

The information for the song story is here: https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/2011/03/gungor_finds_beautiful_things.html