This week we will be learning a new song. “Thou, Whose Purpose Is To Kindle” is a desperate prayer for our Heavenly Father, whose purpose is to kindle, to awaken His Church from sleepy, lukewarm, complacency to be ignited with His Holy fire. It is confession and plea. Just read these powerful words:
Thou, whose purpose is to kindle, Now ignite us with Thy fire;
D. Elton Trueblood, 1967
While the earth awaits Thy burning, With Thy passions us inspire.
Overcome our sinful calmness, Rouse us with redemptive shame;
Baptize with Thy fiery Spirit, Crown our lives with tongues of flame.
Thou, who still a sword delivers Rather than a placid peace,
With Thy sharpened Word disturb us; From complacency release!
Save us now from satisfaction, When we privately are free,
Yet are undisturbed in spirit By our brother’s misery.
Thou who, in Thy holy gospel, Wills that man should truly live,
Make us sense our share of failure, Our tranquility forgive.
Teach us courage as we struggle In all liberating strife;
Lift the smallness of our vision By Thine own abundant life.
We will work on this over the next few weeks so be listening and learning a part (whichever one suits you best). And let me just take this opportunity to echo what the creators of the Sing Your Part application have said about this process.
“Learning to sing your part only takes 5-10 minutes per day. But, to make progress, you need to be consistent. … To learn your part, start by turning up your part and turning down all the other parts. Once you feel confined about singing your part, slowly begin to turn up the melody (usually soprano). This will be challenging because once you hear the melody, you might be inclined to sing that instead of your part. Keep the melody quiet enough that you can still sing your part. As you gain confidence, slowly turn up the melody louder and louder. When the melody is at full strength and you can still sing your part, congratulations – you are doing very well! Unfortunately, you are not quite there yet. This is because in a church setting you will often have trouble hearing your part while everyone around you is singing…. The final step is to begin turning down your own part with the melody still at full volume. When you can turn your part down so that it is barely audible and sill sing against the melody, you now have a chance at singing in a group.”
(from the Sing Your Part app)
Be patient and stick with it. When we learn a new song, we sing it at least three weeks in a row. This means you have three Sundays and three Wednesdays to practice singing it in a group while you are also practicing on your own each day through the week. After those three weeks, we usually take one week off and then sing the new song again the following week.
Here are our songs for this Lord’s Day:
- Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder – Eb
- Jesus Paid It All – Bb
- Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken – Eb
- Before The Throne – Eb
- Thou, Whose Purpose Is To Kindle – Bb
