The Evangelical Universalist Forum

A Song I Wrote

Studies Essays
#1

Hello friends

I recently wrote a chorus. I’ve put the words below. For those musical or interested, I’ve also attached a PDF of the music and an mp3 of our church singing it this morning. It’s a smallish church and the sound is pretty crappy, but you’ll get the idea.

Anyway, I was extremely nervous about doing it this morning (it was the first time we did it), mainly because of verse 2, line 3, as well as verse 3, lines 3-4. So, we did it. Twice. Once early on, and once at the end. I thought that should give people enough ammunition. A few people said nice things about it afterwards. One of them was the pastor(!). He not only said he thought it was great, he said he might adopt it for his series on Colossians in October. I say this not to sound great, but to let you know how incredibly relieved I was that I didn’t get excommunicated, but also that it still amazes me how so many people (including myself for many years) can sing and read words like these and not even start thinking about whether God will in fact reconcile all things back to Him.

Anyway, I feel that God was in this, and I’m encouraged to write more songs with similar themes. Songs which are Bible-infused and which can’t really be questioned biblically, but which still contain these amazing truths of the good news. I thought at least people on this forum would appreciate hearing about it. :slight_smile:

Any feedback is welcome.


**All Things**

CHORUS
All things, created by him
All things, in heaven and earth
All things, both seen and unseen
Jesus made them all

All things, created by him
All things, in heaven and earth
All things, all thrones or powers
Jesus made them all

VERSE 1
He is the head of his body in the world
He is the start of everything
He is the firstborn from among those who have died
So that in all things he will reign in love on high

VERSE 2
For all the fullness of God was in the Lord
And God was pleased to dwell in Him
And through Jesus to reconcile all things to him
His blood brings peace and takes away all of our sin 

VERSE 3
There was a time when we all were far from God
But now we’re reconciled to Him
So let us hold fast to the hope of the good news
That God is reconciling all things back to Him

<a class='attachment' href='/uploads/default/original/1X/748a4066357d98277bb758c4c3e423a3e0728f0b.pdf'>All Things.pdf</a> (17.4 KB)

<a class='attachment' href='/uploads/default/original/1X/30d9ede94b28e5b8395db0d3aabb1c6856f260d1.zip'>All Things.zip</a> (2.59 MB)
#2

Nice little song, rline, and very scriptural! It would be unreasonable for anyone to object to it. :sunglasses:

Sonia

#3

I tried to listen to it, but, for some reason, it wouldn’t play. Bummer, really wanted to hear it. I’m not so technologicly savy. I was thinking the same as Sonia in regards to the lyrics. Kinda hard when you are quoting scripture for people to complain about it.

#4

Excellent work rline! You are a man of many talents :sunglasses: I can understand your apprehension though :laughing: It’s funny no one noticed anything! I take it you have told your leaders yet? Which church are you going to?

Aren’t you married to someone who is professionally qualified in the area of music and technically savvy too? :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

#5

Great song Rline! Hard for anyone to object to singing pure scripture but yes, I can understand you were nervous. :confused: Would you be happy for us to sing it at StG Barcelona?

#6

Hard, but not impossible :laughing:

I was all ready with my defence. “Well, I dunno. It’s in the Bible. It’s right there in Colossians…”

Haven’t told any leaders yet. I think the pastor might have heard something via the Christian grapevine (ie. gossip), but he gave no indication today of there being any problem. I have absolutely no problem with defending myself. I believe firmly that UR is utterly scriptural. I just haven’t been going out of my way to alert the leaders. I guess they’ll know soon enough. Going to One Way, a church plant of Kingston Reformed.

Well that’s an interesting one. Maybe they did. I don’t think it’s any funnier than me not noticing the bleeding obvious for 20 years. How blind can a person be?!? (As blind as I was…)

Amy,

Because it’s a zip file, you just need to unzip it. If you right click on it, your computer will probably have something like Extract file, or extract all, or unzip. If you do that it should extract the file for you. If that doesn’t work, I’ve uploaded a file with this message which is All Things1.pdf. Save it to your hard drive and then just change the last three letters after the dot (pdf) to mp3. It’ll ask you whether you’re sure. Tell it yes. Then it’ll play as a normal mp3.

revdrew

Um, actually I’d be honoured. If you’re interested, and your church likes it enough, I have more. They’re not quite so UR-focussed, but they’ve been well-received at our church. I’d love it if others would road test them.

All Things1.pdf (2.75 MB)

#7

Rline “Well that’s an interesting one. Maybe they did. I don’t think it’s any funnier than me not noticing the bleeding obvious for 20 years. How blind can a person be?!? (As blind as I was…)”

You hit the nail on the head. Your song is lovely and scriptural, but they do not see. Thier eyes are vailed to the truth of those words. The words mean only what they have been taught to say.

Now if you had writen a song that had the lyrics that said something like;

“When God says ALL He means ALL, not most or some”

Then you would have seen thier true colours.

I can think of a few traditional hymns, that now with my new eyes I see so differently and I what to scream “Can’t you hear what you’re singing”

Grace and peace

#8

URpilgrim,

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve been thinking about how to write songs from here on in. I think it needs to be partially veiled in the sense that if, as you say, I wrote a song like “When God says ALL He means ALL, not most or some”, that would cause the shutters to go down instantly and write me off as a heretic. But, if I can manage to put the UR message in there and offer a shaft of light which might cause some to want to open the door and see the light better, then I think I’d feel satisfied with that. Of course, that’s a lot easier theorised than actually done! An example might be Jn 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”. I’m thinking about a song which is almost a prayer, that Jesus will actually draw all people to himself, just as he said. I guess if we’re praying for something Jesus said he’d do, we’re probably guaranteed a positive answer!

#9

nice… great work dude…:slight_smile: