Clap Your Hands -- Charley LeBlanc

 

Pure joy. Exuberant community. Those two phrases may help one understand what Charley LeBlanc was looking for when he said “Clap Your Hands” in 1988. Finding an image that really does justice to such an occasion – think of a sports pep rally, or when someone returns from a great victory (see the triumphant David in the work of art by Mateo Rosselli) – might actually be difficult. And, it’s gotta be more than just a snapshot, but a full-length video that just doesn’t end. A person might need to experience something like this up close, in person. It’s a group experience, meant to be a foretaste of what’s to come, so perhaps Charley was trying to imagine this like never before, even angelically. Can anyone really picture the future scene that John painted while in a trance-like state on Patmos in the first century – Revelation 19: 1-8? There will certainly be a lot more than hand-clapping going on then, but you really cannot fault Charley for trying to spur on a crowd with this idea of celebration, because the victory is already won. Yes. That’s worth at least a WOW!

 

Charley LeBlanc and his wife, Jill, must have their own favorite, exquisite memories to draw upon – something that fires their engines. That is the sense of what comes across when reading from their official website. It’s impossible to miss, including when you note that they’ve designated their overall ministry name with something that begins with these two words – Joyful Word. They haven’t shared specifically on that site why a song like ‘Clap Your Hands’ materialized in 1988, but maybe that’s because their entire enterprise is infused with the attitude they hope to generate with that music. It really doesn’t require much insight to see what they are after, and you can actually hear it in Charley’s voice when he’s coaxing a crowd to join in as they sing the song (hear the rendition of the song at the link below). Join in everyone! No one is left out – that’s his intention. And, the album’s name on which the song appears also indicates that this is for everyone – it’s called Lord of All. That they emphasize this group joy, even in the midst of their own grief when their son Beau died in 2009, says so much about them and the fortitude of this life attitude they have. They say on their site that Beau ‘blasted off into Heaven’, rather than muttering that it was so unfair and premature. They lean on what Paul tells believers about the heaven journey -- If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more (Philippians 1:21). So, summing up what Charley says with his lyrics sounds like this: Everybody celebrate the big win! God’s behind all of this, and Jesus is Lord for all of us! Not enough exclamation marks for this! It’s something that overcomes even death.

 

Think of your most exciting in-person or video-viewed experience – see if that may give you a taste of what Charley and the apostles John and Paul have been trying to coax from your insides. I like to click on a link to one of my favorite celebratory scenes (even if it is a little blurry, because of the quality of the video), because I sense that it really captures something rare. You can see the fans already waving towels and cheering before the play even happens, as they try to spur the team on to victory. Then, when the big, clinching play happens, the stadium erupts – 60,000 to 70,000 fans (root word for fanatics) yelling and jumping up and down as one, until there’s a final crescendo when the player crosses the goal line and jams his index finger in the air. Awesome…no other word suffices. Got it? Now be the fanatic for Him who’s got your victory party waiting for you. Yeah!  

 

 

See information about the LeBlanc couple here: www.charlieandjill.com  and  About – www.charlieandjill.com   and Personal Bio – www.charlieandjill.com

 

Hear a rendition of the song, as performed/lead by Leblanc here: Charlie LeBlanc- Clap Your Hands (Medley) (Hosanna! Music) - YouTube

 

Public Domain status of the picture: 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 100 years or fewer.  (author  - Matteo Rosselli  (1578–1650)) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosselli_Triunfo_David.jpeg

Your Grace Still Amazes Me -- Shawn Craig and Connie Harrington

 

 

These two apparently collaborated on a song around the turn of the century, or a little thereafter, regarding a subject that one might think is well-trodden ground. But that may be why the two – Shawn Craig and Connie Harrington – decided to insert a word into this oft-repeated subject. “Your Grace Still Amazes Me”, they said, a song and a subject that’s become no less popular in the 21^st Century than when the original song was first published a few years after it was written by John Newton in the late 1700s (see the picture of the song [bottom third of the photo] as first published in the Olney Hymns in 1779). Do people use extravagant adjectives too much, so that words like ‘amazing’ lose their potency? Could it be that we humans have grown so accustomed to our faults, that we gloss over them as a normal part of our existence; and, so why should anything that was amazing at first still capture our hearts? I may become calloused by my own behavior and the repeated issues that snag me every day – maybe that’s why Shawn and Connie felt the need to revisit His nature, this love-grace outpouring that just doesn’t stop.

 

 

Was there something that was troubling either Shawn or Connie when they decided to add to the ‘Amazing Grace’ universe of songs and other media in 2001? Unknown, is the short answer, but just consider the background of these two in order to contemplate why they might have written something new on the topic of grace and its astounding nature. Shawn is a leader-pastor at a church in St. Louis (Crosspoint Church [formerly South County Christian Center]), and is also a member of a contemporary Christian singing trio known as Phillips, Craig & Dean (Randy Phillips and Dan Dean are likewise pastors, in Texas-based churches), a group that’s been around for over 30 years. So, Shawn has undoubtedly seen or heard of troubled people – even in Christian settings -- and their needs for such a long time, that it doesn’t take much imagination to think of why grace would still touch him. Connie’s been deeply focused on songwriting in Nashville, and is the co-owner of THis Music. Her own words (see link to an article below that she wrote) indicate how important she thinks lyric-writing is to the success of a song. As a part of the Nashville songwriting industry, she is always on the lookout for song lyric ideas and a story that makes the song meaningful, like the one in 2013 she composed to honor and help a grieving dad whose soldier-son had been killed in Afghanistan (see link below). Everybody is in need…that’s an axiom that Shawn and Connie must have acknowledged and helped distribute on countless occasions. And, for each person that they’ve encountered, the gift of grace is packed with something almost indescribable. It might be a ‘so what?’ to others, but when you really need grace in an urgent moment, that’s when its amazing quality feels like a cool breeze on a blazing day. Shawn and Connie do their best to vocalize this amazing God-to-human transaction, with words and phrases like ‘tender’, ‘river with no end’, ‘overwhelm(ing)’, ‘mystery’, ‘wonder(ful)’, and ‘deeper’, ‘wider’, ‘stronger’, ‘higher’. But, perhaps even they would admit that words are inadequate to tell all there is about amazing. And, that He’s still dispensing it to us continual mistake-makers.      

 

 

Perhaps Shawn’s and Connie’s song has more impact on those of us who are older, and whose sin-nature still dogs them. You see, the more sins you pile up as you age, the more you really appreciate the gift that doesn’t stop giving. How many media items do you have that say something about grace, as you try to appreciate this gift? On my shelves, I find four books – Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace, and Vanishing Grace; Steve Turner’s Amazing Grace – The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song; and Eric Metaxas’s Amazing Grace – William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. And, I have an advertisement for another one that I plan to purchase – James Walvin’s Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn (scheduled to hit the stores in Oct. 2023). That’s just the books. The church where I worship has no less than eight songs containing the word ‘grace’ listed in the worship ministry’s repertoire for those of us that help the church sing each Sunday. And, I find 14 songs in my personal music discs on my PC that likewise contain the word ‘grace’. And, how many times have Amazing Grace’s tones been elsewhere, like in the movies? Countless times, I suspect. This thing that God gives us, and our recognition of it in our culture, is still going strong…it’s only going to get better when we leave this culture, and travel to another one! Shawn and Connie have just given us a reminder of that.

    

 

See here for information and a picture about one of the authors (Shawn Craig): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips,_Craig_and_Dean

 

See here for information re: the church where Shawn Craig ministers: https://www.thecrosspoint.com/southcounty/

 

See here for an article written by Connie Harrington: https://www.nashvillesongwriters.com/anatomy-great-lyric

 

See here for description of how Connie developed one song: A Songwriter And An Army Dad Share One Touching Story : NPR

 

See here for information on the original song and story that has inspired so many other songs, books, and movies: Amazing Grace - Wikipedia

 

Public Domain status of the picture of the hymnal showing Amazing Grace’s first publication: This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1928, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. See this page for further explanation. File:Olney Hymns page 53 Amazing Grace.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

Be Lifted High -- Leeland Mooring

 

Another sleep-deprived night – how often does that circumstance help breed a new song? Leeland Mooring could say with confidence that, at least during one of these times, God was telling him to pray (maybe even with clasped hands) and worship, that Leeland needed to say ‘Lord “Be Lifted High”, because I’ve got something on my mind’. Maybe something had happened just recently, or perhaps it was a more chronic issue that was bothering Leeland, but the situation didn’t leave him with merely a ‘brain-fried’ feeling the next morning in 2006. And, sharing it with a musical friend, one who may have had similar episodes in his own experience, probably helped validate what Leeland’s sleepless event had generated. Even the casual bible reader might notice the number of times that God used sleep (as in dreams), or a sleepless time so that His mission can proceed (like Paul – 2 Corinthians 6:4-5; and 2 Cor. 11:27). So, what do you think…how may God have been using your human sleep cycle for His purposes?

 

Leeland Mooring relates in a video (see link below) that ‘Be Lifted High’ arose during one night following a long trip that he and his band members had just completed. Was it jet lag, or delayed stress that Leeland was feeling, which induced his insomnia? He doesn’t seem to dwell on the physical part of what happened, but more on what was going on inside himself, something that just told him he needed to pray and worship at that moment. Leeland mentions struggles that people endure were in his thoughts – things like sin, or emotional issues, or perhaps depression. Perhaps it was ‘sin’ most prominently, since he addresses that in the opening line of both verses 1 and 2 of the song – that sin ‘grows old’ and ‘lead(s) to pain’. It was with this realization -- of knowing what this disease of iniquity does to a person – that gave Leeland the answer he found in the poetry he found himself writing. ‘Put God in the center of all my issues, and all those toxic things just melt away’ – that sums up what Leeland felt about the crux of the matter, and gave him the song’s title words. Verses 3 and 4 indicated that Leeland thought another root of our human problem is being ‘prideful’ and ‘think(ing)…it was me’, that our basic egos shove us into the wrong place. It’s as if we are like those biblical characters we have all scoffed at, who worshipped the created things (like idols) rather than the Creator. You and I are His created beings, too. Mooring shared his song and his thoughts with Michael W. Smith, who evidently embraced what Leeland shared, since he included the song on his next album (Stand, in 2006). 

 

Leeland mentions one more effect of putting God in the center, and it’s in his song’s chorus so that it’s repeated, as if to remind us of its import. I don’t lift Him high just for my own eyes to see; it’s so ‘that they (will) see’. Will everyone eventually see the Creator? What do you think when you read 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, and Matthew 24:27? Oh yeh, He’ll be high then, all right. But, for some the sight will be horrifying, and for others it will be quite different – call it exhilarating. It really will be a result of some people seeing Him for the first time, even in their minds and hearts. For others, they will be seeing someone they’ve longed to see physically, while having held Him close – or, rather being held close by Him —for some time. Don’t wait until the sky parts, and then discover that you suddenly and terribly feel like ‘mourning as the Son of Man is coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Matthew 24:30). Get used to seeing Him now, even if it takes someone else helping you with your eyesight.           

 

See the song’s story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSg8n2JSL8k (time-mark 0:45 – 1:52 of this New Song Café episode [worshiptogether.com])

 

See here for information about the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeland_(band)

 

Public Domain status of the picture of praying hands: (Artwork by Albrecht Dürer  [1471–1528]). The author died in 1528, so 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 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.