Rock of Ages
I love old gospel hymns. Nothing sooths me more when I'm down and out than a tear inducing Amazing Grace or Softly and Tenderly. I grew up in a small country church. When I say country, I mean, way out in the boonies. The building could have just as easily fit in downtown but the people, the music, the feel--it was plain old fashion country church. Most of the folks lived within a 10 mile radius and many of them had been there for more years than my grandparents had been born. These were plainspoken people. Church was Holy Ground and Sunday morning worship was a family affair.
This church thrived on the old gospel hymns. Rock of Ages, Love Lifted Me, Just As I Am, Power in the Blood, Old Rugged Cross...these are just a few of the songs we sang nearly every Sunday. Comfort songs. Songs of love and healing. Songs of salvation written the century before. Back then I used to get board with the slow cadence and repetition of some of these songs. Now I wish we could go back.
It seems now, in the 21st century, churches everywhere have gone contemporary. Old hymns are thrown in only on special occasions or strictly limited in number on any given Sunday. Instead, praise and worship songs are sang...many times just the chorus of a praise and worship song and that chorus is repeated until the song is bleeding from your ears. There's lots of hand holding, no hymnals save for when the odd hymn is sang. Christmas songs like Away in a Manger and Silent Night are rarely sang at Christmas replaced instead by music written for specific programs. I miss the feel of a hymnal weighing on my hands or clutched to my chest as the swells of At Calvary wash over me. I miss the spirit of excitment that used to shiver down my spine while singing Joy to the World.
I don't mean to say that I don't enjoy new music. The praise and worship songs are quite often beautifully written and often times quite moving in their spirituality. But they don't give me the same comfort that say, I'll Fly Away always did. I can't quite say when this shift in church culture changed. My closest frame of reference was sometime when I was in college or maybe even late high school.
We left that little country church behind when I was 14 but on the rare occasions when I go back to visit now those old hymns that comforted me so are long gone. Gone with the old timers who used to painfully pinch my cheeks and give me peppermints. I wonder sometimes that should I take a walk through the cemetary, would I see those old faithful hymns buried alongside the very people who instilled them inside me?
In my small inadequate way, I hope to always keep those hymns and that small country church feel alive inside me and to maybe someday pass that love down to the children in my family who parhaps may never know the soft and gentle joy of In the Garden.
This church thrived on the old gospel hymns. Rock of Ages, Love Lifted Me, Just As I Am, Power in the Blood, Old Rugged Cross...these are just a few of the songs we sang nearly every Sunday. Comfort songs. Songs of love and healing. Songs of salvation written the century before. Back then I used to get board with the slow cadence and repetition of some of these songs. Now I wish we could go back.
It seems now, in the 21st century, churches everywhere have gone contemporary. Old hymns are thrown in only on special occasions or strictly limited in number on any given Sunday. Instead, praise and worship songs are sang...many times just the chorus of a praise and worship song and that chorus is repeated until the song is bleeding from your ears. There's lots of hand holding, no hymnals save for when the odd hymn is sang. Christmas songs like Away in a Manger and Silent Night are rarely sang at Christmas replaced instead by music written for specific programs. I miss the feel of a hymnal weighing on my hands or clutched to my chest as the swells of At Calvary wash over me. I miss the spirit of excitment that used to shiver down my spine while singing Joy to the World.
I don't mean to say that I don't enjoy new music. The praise and worship songs are quite often beautifully written and often times quite moving in their spirituality. But they don't give me the same comfort that say, I'll Fly Away always did. I can't quite say when this shift in church culture changed. My closest frame of reference was sometime when I was in college or maybe even late high school.
We left that little country church behind when I was 14 but on the rare occasions when I go back to visit now those old hymns that comforted me so are long gone. Gone with the old timers who used to painfully pinch my cheeks and give me peppermints. I wonder sometimes that should I take a walk through the cemetary, would I see those old faithful hymns buried alongside the very people who instilled them inside me?
In my small inadequate way, I hope to always keep those hymns and that small country church feel alive inside me and to maybe someday pass that love down to the children in my family who parhaps may never know the soft and gentle joy of In the Garden.
I walk in the Garden with Him,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the sound I hear falling on my ear,
the Son of God discloses,
And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
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