Monday, May 17, 2010

How Vast the Benefits Divine

So this morning I found some leftover doughnuts in the church refrigerator. They're the Publix brand (which, by the way, buying Publix brand is just as good as a commercial item). I've become anti-microwave pro-toaster oven these days, so I popped one in the toaster oven and made myself a latte from the church espresso machine. Within minutes, that kitchen smelled like a dougnhut shop. What a great start to a Monday!

This month, we introduced an old hymn with a new melody to our congregation - "How Vast the Benefits Divine". One long-term project I've been working on is finding some good texts from the Trinity Hymnal and re-writing the melody. This is one of them. It's really neat to be living in a day-and-age when people are re-writing hymns. For people like me with a slight case of A.D.D., hymns take a little longer to catch on because they're "wordy". As one who became a Christian during the contemporary Christian music explosion, I've had to train myself to see the beauty of hymn-writing (I still love contemporary music, too). Yet over the past 5 or so years, I've begun to compile a list of favorites.

Here's the 1st verse to "How Vast the Benefits Divine":

How vast the benefits divine which we in Christ possess
We are redeemed from guilt and shame and called to holiness
But not for works which we have done, or shall here-after do
Hath God decreed on sinful men salvation to bestow

I'd love to post an mp3, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. If any of you experienced bloggers know how to do this, please let me know.

In other news, Stacy, my dad and I went and saw the new Robin Hood movie yesterday. I'm a HUGE Russell Crowe fan, but director Ridley Scott bombed this one. It's basically "Gladiator Returns." First off, the movie is extremely slow in developing a plot, and when it finally does, it doesn't go anywhere. The action is fantastic, but for me, if good action scenes aren't coupled with a good plot, I won't be buying it on DVD.

3 comments:

  1. I love the Trinity Hymnal. I have also taken on the task of re-writing melodies for old hymn texts - it's something I have found that I really enjoy.

    If you were on Wordpress I could help you out with the mp3 posting! Not sure I could in blogspot...

    Thanks for the link to Congregational Songs! Sounds like we have very similar visions for glorifying God through corporate worship, not to mention similar tastes in good music.

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  2. Yeah, man. My pastor sent me that link just yesterday (5/24). I haven't been able to dive into it a whole lot yet, but I could tell it's going to be valuable.

    No worries about the mp3 player. I'm starting to think I might need to copyright my stuff before putting it on the web, anyway.

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  3. By the way, Jeff. I'd be happy to share some of my new melodies with you if you're willing to do the same with me...trusting we won't put our names each others' music!

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