Singing the "Old Songs"

 

Last week Lexington Baptist Church held our 4th Camp Meeting out in Leesville at the Spradlin's Pond-House facility.  We had about 75 Sr. Adults armed with copies of the 1956 Baptist Hymnal.  We ate supper and then sang hymn medleys and hymn requests for over an hour.  We sang the hymns that most of us grew up singing so many times, year after year, that the lyrics are still embedded in our minds.  Having hymn books, those who read music can sing the alto, tenor, and bass parts.  We could go acapella and experience the beautiful blend of different voices singing in harmony yet being unified by the rhythm and the text.   At these Camp Meetings, someone might request a song that has not been sung in church anywhere since the 1970s!

It is rather interesting to point out that whenever people talk about singing the old songs, they are really only referring to songs that were written in the late 1700s like Amazing Grace and the 1900s like Victory in Jesus written in 1939.  When we were singing Victory in Jesus in 1970 as an old hymn, it was only 31 years old!

Today in worship at LBC we had the LU Singers Gospel Choir from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  These energetic young people love to sing contemporary gospel praise music.  But they announced that they were going to sing a medley of “old songs” that we all might remember singing at youth camp or somewhere back in the day.  They sang some praise songs like He is Exalted, Give Thanks, and Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.  Old songs!?!? These songs are not that old to me!  But I checked, and Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord, was written in 1997! 

Then it hit me that’s like 25 years ago to these college-age kids who had not been born when these songs were written!  That would be like when I was in college in 1976 singing songs that were written in 1951!  I definitely would have thought those songs were old-timey!  But like many things in life, some things will stand the test of time.  And the LU Singers sang those “old songs” with just as much joy and enthusiasm as the latest, greatest praise song.  This is why I sometimes ask a group I am leading in worship the question, “Why do we still sing the old songs?”  And my answer is the one I first heard composer Randy Vader give at a music conference about 20 years ago, “We don’t sing them because they are old, but because they are good!”

Dear friends, we do not all have the same view of life because we are not all viewing everything from the same perspective.  Some are on the front row and some of us have moved to the balcony of life.  But as long as I am in the building I can appreciate and participate in the worship of our Father in Heaven!