Do you like to read? Do you enjoy learning about new music? Are you looking for articles that can help you grow in your faith?
Check out the articles here and on our discipleship website, Gospel to Glory

Is He Worthy

While this song doesn’t fit well in a listing of new congregational worship songs, we did sing it as a special just last Sunday and it was a powerful moment of worship. Andrew Peterson does a beautiful job reminding us of God’s worthiness, the beauty of Christ, and the mercy that comes as a free gift. 

 
Let this song be part of your personal worship as you think and reflect on our great God.


The Prodigal

The parable of the prodigal son found in Luke 15 is a wonderful illustration of God’s mercy and grace freely given to us. This is not a newly released song, but is a new song to our congregation and is a great reminder of God’s grace as we continue our study in the book of Romans. 

 
Carefully pay attention to the lyrics. There are some powerful phrases.
 

VERSE 1
You held out Your arms, I walked away
Insolent, I spurned Your face
Squandering the gifts You gave to me
Holding close forbidden things
Destitute, a rebel still, a fool in all my pride
The world I once enjoyed is death to me
No joy, no hope, no life

VERSE 2
Where now are the friends that I had bought
Gone with every penny lost
What hope could there be for such as I
Sold out to a world of lies
Oh to see Your face again, it seems so distant now
Could it be that You would take me back
A servant in Your house

VERSE 3
You held out Your arms, I see them still
You never left, You never will
Running to embrace me, now I know
Your cords of love will always hold
Mercy’s robe, a ring of grace
Such favor undeserved
You sing over me and celebrate
The rebel now Your child



Great Is Thy Faithfulness (Beginning to End)

The hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness is always on the short list of all-time favorite Christian hymns. Generation after generation has loved this great lyric and melody. 

 
Mike Weaver from One Sonic Society takes this very familiar melody and lyric and adds something new. He adds a heartfelt chorus that partners so well with the truth proclaimed in the original lyric. It changes things up a little, but gets us to think–perhaps bumps us out of “rote worship”–that worship where the familiar becomes so familiar we almost forget why we sing and what we are singing about. I hope this new song jars us all out of the “repetitive” and this song becomes as new and alive as the very first time we sung it.


Kyrie Eleison

Have you ever taken a moment and thought about the fact that the God we worship and our Savior Jesus Christ has been worshiped for generations and generations. It is an amazing thing that we share this important act of giving gratitude–of declaring worth–with countless others who came before us.

 
All worship has a liturgy.  Liturgy simply means the form we worship. We might call our liturgy a worship order, but it is still a liturgy. Our liturgy contains new songs that were written in recent years and older songs that have been part of Christian liturgies for decades or even centuries. We sing the song Amazing Grace and join the countless others who came before us who also sung this song in their liturgy. 
 
Going back much further before a song such as Amazing Grace, we there were songs or prayers that were regularly used as part of the liturgy of that time. One of these is called the Kyrie. The lyric of the Kyrie is simply “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison” or translated to English, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.” Its foundation can be found in 1st Chronicles 16:24, “…give thanks to the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endures for ever…” 
 
The Kyrie was included in the liturgy of worship and while it would be used in a variety of ways, was always found in the communion service–the mass. 
 
Composers such as J.S. Bach, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart all wrote Kyrie’s. Here are a few examples:
 
 
In the same spirit and in the same desire to call out to God and Christ in heartfelt repentance, Chris Tomlin wrote this beautiful Kyrie for our age. As you sing and worship with this song, think of our need for God’s mercy and our thankfulness that his mercy never ends, it does endure for ever and ever.