Hymns: 2004 Memories

I started this little series with 1980, and the early years were a lot more exciting for me. I suppose it’s that way with most people. My mother and father would always speak most enthusiastically of the 1950s. But I’ll keep this series going for as long as I can. Then, I think I’ll go back to 1979 and work backwards – however I can manage that 😀.

In 2004, I began hearing about a new Baptist work in Dublin; Ballycullen Community Church. The church was officially formed in 2007. Interestingly, several of the newer Baptist churches are named Community Churches, as are many other new evangelical churches. Back in my time, Christian Fellowship was a popular name. That’s what we called ourselves in Tipperary, but it’s now changed to Tipperary Bible Church. Bible Church is another popular name. I like the name Baptist Church because it has so much history, but I can understand folk who think it peculiar to name a church after your preferred mode of baptism. But I suppose the emphasis is on personal conversion, which is why most evangelicals wait until you encounter a personal conversion before they baptize you. Many of them do have dedication services for new babies, where the church celebrates the birth and prays that the child will come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Evangelical Alliance Ireland was also formed in 2004. Another association, the Association of Irish Evangelical Churches, was founded in the early 1990’s. It changed its name to Aontas in 2006. In Tipperary Christian Fellowship, we joined Aontas, and we enjoyed attending their national family days. It was a nice way to meet up with old friends.

Some popular hymns from 2004 include the following:

Another 2004 memory was a meeting in Jury’s Hotel, Limerick, with various evangelical churches in Limerick and the surrounding areas in attendance. We used to have these from time to time, especially back in the 1990s. One of the speakers was a Japanese Christian who had been living in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bomb.

The book, Evangelicals in Ireland was also published in 2004. I read it again a few months ago, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I did in 2004. That’s the way books work – with me anyway 😀.

My company closed in 2004. All the jobs went to India, and it closed completely a few years after. I eventually found a new job, but Ireland looks after you well when you’re unemployed, especially when you have children. In some respects, maybe a bit too well because you do get people who take advantage of it. During times when I’ve been unemployed, I’ve always looked for work and used the time to upskill.

In Tipperary, I remember us focusing mainly on the Old Testament, with studies in Exodus, Joshua etc. and we also studied church government in the New Testament in addition to Romans and 1 John.

The secular charts had a song called Jesus Walks by Kanye.

I know many Christians who would want no association with such people. But Jesus wasn’t choosy about his company. If he criticized anyone, it was judgemental religious people. It’s not that standards should drop, but we should accept that some people have a lot to contend with and might not live up to our standards, but they might still love God. King David was a good example of that.

The Da Vinci Code was quite popular in 2004. I always saw it as a silly book that I didn’t even bother reading. However, it got people thinking and investigating. The same can be said of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which was published a few years later. Here’s an interesting article. Resources For Responding to The Da Vinci Code Movie. It’s an interview with Peter Jones. As it happens, he was a friend of John Lennon as a child in Quarry Bank High School, Liverpool.

2004 was also the year of The Passion of the Christ. I used to enjoy old films about Jesus as a child. This film got a lot of criticism. An example is Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ: A Theological Critique. But I never expect much from films or TV shows based on Bible stories. Sometimes, they can give you a flavour of what things were like, but it’s much better to go to the Bible itself if you want the truth.

Anyway, here are some music, events, and films/TV shows that would have formed the background to 2004. I don’t necessarily endorse all the songs or films. 😀.

10 Songs

• Take Me Out​:  Franz Ferdinand
• Somewhere Only We Know​: Keane
• Dance With My Father​:  Luther Vandross
• Left Outside Alone: Anastacia 
• If I Thought You’d Ever Change Your Mind​: Agnetha Fältskog 
• Everybody’s Changing​: Keane
• Irish Blood, English Heart​: Morrissey 
• Mr Brightside​: The Killers
• Thunderbirds Are Go: Busted
• These Words: Natasha Bedingfield
• The Love Of Richard Nixon​: Manic Street Preachers
• Vertigo​: U2

10 Events

• Indian Ocean Tsunami (Dec 26) – A 9.3 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed over 230,000 people across Southeast Asia.
• Facebook Launches (Feb 4) – Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook at Harvard, reshaping social media forever.
• Madrid Train Bombings (Mar 11) – Coordinated terrorist attacks killed 193 people and injured over 2,000.
• Orange Revolution in Ukraine – Massive protests led to a re-run of the presidential election amid fraud allegations.
• NASA’s Spirit Rover Lands on Mars (Jan 4) – A major achievement in planetary exploration.
• Google Launches Gmail (Apr 1) – Initially thought to be an April Fool’s joke, it revolutionized email.
• Nintendo DS & Sony PSP Released – Ushered in a new era of portable gaming.
• Ireland Bans Smoking in Public Places (Mar 29) – First country in the world to do so nationwide.
• The Da Vinci Code Dominates Bestseller Lists – Continued its reign as a literary phenomenon
• Final Episode of Friends Airs (May 6) – 52.5 million viewers tuned in to say goodbye

10 Films or TV Shows

• The Incredibles
• Shrek 2
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Finding Neverland
• A Series of Unfortunate Events
• The Polar Express
• Thunderbirds
• The Passion of the Christ
• The Day After Tomorrow
• The X-factor

10 Famous People Who Passed Away

• Ronald Reagan (U.S. President)
• Marlon Brando (Actor)
• Ray Charles (Musician)
• Christopher Reeve (Actor)
• Yasser Arafat (Palestinian leader)
• Peter Ustinov (Actor, director, and writer)
• Francis Crick (Biologist, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA)
• Tony Randall (Actor)
• Maureen Potter (Actor/Comedian)​
• Laura Branigan (Musician)