In this series, I explore some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀.
Select the arrow for my “general intro” (which I’m reusing for all the modern hymns that I explore)
I grew up with rock music, so it’s not such a shocking thing for me to explore these. Back in my earlier years as a Christian, we had the old hymns and some modern choruses that originated in the 1970s charismatic movement. As time went on, I started to prefer the older hymns.
Nowadays, I try to maintain an interest in all Christian music. It’s easy to find “trendy” Christian music annoying, even as a Christian 😀. I don’t know why. But I’m trying to overcome that prejudice. Perhaps the older hymns give us a sense of history, but many of these would have been similar to popular music of their day. So maybe people cringed when they first heard some of these too 😀.
Anyway, today’s hymn is I Thank God. It’s from 2021.
This one is particularly danceable. I’ll add a couple of dance videos later. When I was a younger Christian, I was a bit suspicious of Christian dancing. And as time went on, I started to have some much respect for traditional reformed evangelical churches that I tended to despise any kind of innovation. But now that I’m getting old, I don’t want to become a grumpy old man, so I’m trying to be more open minded.
If I watch an old church singing a traditional hymn, I tend to see them all as very godly. And if I watch a new song, I see people who just seem to want to have fun – like Cyndi Lauper 😄. Why should I think that I know what’s going on in peoples’ hearts? And why should God have a preference for older styles of worship? It’s true that the older style seems more conducive to reverence. But perhaps we can encounter varying emotions when we’re in the presence of God. I see that in the psalms. Here are a couple of examples:
Psalm 33:8
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
Psalm 149:3
“Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.”
Newer hymns can also emphasize reverence and awe and older hymns can be fun to sing. Much depends on how we approach worship and how aware we are of the fact that we’re in the presence of God. And I think that it’s good to study the lyrics outside of church. We can’t always easily take in what we’re singing as we sing it.
“I Thank God” feels like a song of personal testimony. It’s a little like Amazing Grace. We don’t all have the same experience in coming to Christ. I don’t remember having a particularly wicked lifestyle or my life going particularly wrong. And I wasn’t particularly holy either. But everyone needs the Saviour. When Jesus said “You must be born again”, he was speaking to a very godly Pharisee who, unlike so many other pharisees, was friendly towards Jesus. Even if our experience doesn’t match that of the writer, we can think of our own lives as we sing it and thank him for what he has done, for what he is doing, and for what he will do for us.
Anyway, here are some interesting versions of today’s song:
Hibernia Gospel 