Tag Archives: Louie Giglio

Worship Wednesday – Why Singing Matters – with an Early Chris Tomlin Song

Photo Credit: BP News

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” – Colossians 3:16

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart…” – Ephesians 5:18-19

Okay…be honest. Do you ever get distracted during the singing portion of a worship service? Maybe you’re looking for a friend who hasn’t arrived yet. Perhaps, your attention has turned to those with their hands up, sweetly swaying to the music. Or, the song is new to you, and you are wondering who else is struggling with the lyrics.

Singing songs out loud in public (even among friends) is awkward for some. I totally get that. Still, it seems the comfort level of many in congregational singing has to do with growing up in a worshipping culture that they embraced early in life. [Now, don’t get me wrong – this is a totally casual observation. It does not include people who came to faith later in life and who can’t contain their joy because of it.] If you agree, or disagree, please respond in the Comments.

Our children had the privilege of participating in worship singing since they were tiny. Even living overseas for so many years.

I went through a season that children’s church choir programming was a benefit of larger more privileged congregations. That season was short, and now I’m over it.

Teaching children and youth to praise God in singing Biblical songs is essential to raising up worshippers. It’s not about performance; it’s about the heart-mind connection between us and God.

Although children’s choir programs may be right up there with elementary school piano recitals, think about the outcomes. Kids who love Jesus and express that love together, and for the encouragement of all the church…and beyond even.

My heritage is lots of choirs and lots of church events with singing. I will never forget the many times God met me at a youth camp bonfire, with someone with a guitar leading us in singing. We must have known those songs. No projected lyrics onto the nightime sky. No songsheets. We knew the songs.Photo Credit: BP News

In 1998, a young singer/songwriter Chris Tomlin released his second album, Authentic. He was just 26 years old. Just the year before, he was asked by Louie Giglio to join Passion Conferences where he continues to minister.

In those days, worship songs often looped or repeated the lyrics, so that’s one way we all learned them so well. Many worship songs also included Scripture verbatim, or the lyrics were essentially Scripture. Both (repeated Bible verse lyrics) were the case with Tomlin’s song Romans 16:19 on his Authentic album.

That song came to mind just yesterday…after all these years.

I remember that verse to this day because of Chris Tomlin and all the times singing it, dancing around with youth at bonfires or in crazy Friday night church rallies. Contemporary worship music has evolved and matured in many ways. Still a lot of the “old” early standards continue to minister to our hearts because they are in our heads.

For all of us, it is wisdom then to teach our children to worship (in other ways but also with singing). Why? Because we remember those songs the same as we remember Bible verses we learn as children. They go down deep in our minds. Also, and most importantly, worship should be as natural as breathing for God’s people. Learning to worship young helps us to seek Him in that way our whole lives…even, and especially, in the times when worshipping is not so easy.

7 Biblical Matters Why Singing Matters – Unlocking the Bible

Worship with me, please…to this great old song by our great brother Chris Tomlin. [I bet my kids still know this song.]

Romans 16:19 says!
Romans 16:19 says!
Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of evil
Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of evil
[Chorus:]
And the God of Peace will soon crush Satan
God will crush him underneath your feet!
And the God of Peace will soon crush Satan
God will crush him underneath your feet!
Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of evil
Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of evil[chorus 2x]Romans 16:19 says!

Next time you’re in worship with the church gathered, I hope you sing. Please put some of your favorite early worship songs in the Comments for us to enjoy reminiscing about…or to learn anew. Also I would love to know what songs your little ones are singing in your church’s children’s ministry…or what songs you’re teaching them.

[Below you will find a published playlist for this summer’s Fuge Camps. These could be the songs your youth will remember into adulthood.]

Worship Wednesday – All These Babies – Raising Up Worshippers – Lullabies – Deb Mills Writer

Leading Children in God-Centered Worship – Pam Grano

Teaching Our Kids to Be Worshipers – Kevin West

Worship Wednesday – Take My Life – Here Am I – Chris Tomlin

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Romans 12:1

Don’t you love answered prayer? Even if it’s surprisingly different than what you were thinking. A week ago, in our community group (home group of Movement Church), I shared a struggle during the prayer time. My request was for God to restore a season of influence in my life…that I might influence others for good as had been my experience in times in the past. I was looking back and not forward, and my sense of what a life should be at my age and situation was different than how I saw it at present. Different and lacking?

Sigh…God have mercy…and…He did.

Those dear friends of mine listened, empathized, loved and prayed.

Then Sunday, at our time of corporate worship, there was great singing…and great revelation. The songs included How Wonderful, How Marvelous; Take My Life/Here Am I (which I’ll come back to); and To the Ends of the Earth. These were the kind of songs that call a people to revival…to hearts and lives poured out to God and for the nations.

On Sunday morning, I wasn’t thinking about that longing of my heart to be an influence for good, but God must have been. When our teaching pastor, Cliff Jordan, preached, I sensed the movement of God in my heart so strong, it was as if the message was just for me.

Cliff preached out of John 21 where Jesus appeared to His disciples during the days after His resurrection. Sitting around a cook-fire, Jesus ate fish with His friends, fish they had caught in a miraculous fashion (John 21:3-6). In a tender moment, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him…to which Peter answered in the affirmative. Three times Jesus asked, and three times Peter answered. The awful memory of his previous three denials of Jesus must have burned in Peter’s throat. Each time, Peter answered yes that he loved Jesus, and then Jesus told him to feed His sheep. No fanfare, no illusion of Peter’s excellent abilities to do so. Just a simple command, in the end, to follow Him.

In those quiet moments of intimate fellowship between sinner and Savior, Peter had to have felt the love of Jesus. Still in his impetuous, striving nature, he posed a question to Jesus about His will for another disciple (John 21:20-22). Again, Jesus drew Peter’s attention, not to what that disciple would be about, but what Jesus’s call was on Peter’s life. “You follow Me.”

Through Cliff’s sermon and those three words, the answer to my prayer rang from Heaven. It doesn’t matter my season of life or even what others, in my age or situation, are doing or how they are being used by God. I am to be about loving and following Jesus.

Even tonight, a friend reminded me of the story of the Apostle Paul’s incarceration which he entrusted himself into God’s hands. In Paul’s letter from prison to the church at Philippi, he spoke these words:

I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill:  The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains;  but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.Philippians 1:12-18

That friend who spoke truth into my heart has also struggled, as have I, with a season where it seems God has put us on some sort of shelf, or on the sideline. Oh, glorious truth, in every season, He calls us to follow Him. Paul, for months, chained to a prison guard, saw the truth. His ministry was not diminished in the least. It was only different…and his focus? Ever on the Lord. That is the key…for me.

Since Sunday’s gathering of our church right through tonight, I have been in revival. That old time revival where God’s Spirit would shake the rafters of a building or the folds of a big tent with the prayers, singing and preaching of His people. Where, of course, we would “sing another verse” until He had finished whatever work He was doing in the lives of every person present.

Photo Credit: Milanoapi

My children do not have revival meetings as part of their heritage. I wish they had…and maybe they will sometime in their future. I am thankful for growing up in the South when protracted revival meetings broke up hot summers into joyous returnings of hearts to follow Jesus.

Hymn-writer Frances Ridley Havergal wrote the lyrics to Take My Life and Let It Be in 1874. She along with Fanny Crosby and others wrote the hymns that stirred our devotion to God. In fact, these hymn-writers’ lyrics flamed the fires of revival across our world. The deep prayers of the faithful and the strong preaching of the churchmen in the 1800s and 1900s were all part of that.

Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio adapted the lyrics and melody of Take My Life and Let It Be for the worshipers of this generation.

Worship with me.

Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee
Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee

Take my voice and let me sing always, only for my King
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee
Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold
Take my intellect and use every power as You choose

Here am I, all of me, take my life, it’s all for Thee

Take my will and make it Thine, it shall be no longer mine
Take my heart, it is Thine own, it shall be Thy royal throne
Take my love, my Lord I pour at Your feet, it’s treasure store
Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for Thee*

*Lyrics to Take My Life/Here Am I – Songwriters: Chris Tomlin & Louis Giglio; adapted from the hymn composed by Frances Ridley Havergal

Hymn Stories: Take My Life and Let it Be – Tim Challies

Songs & Scripture: “Take My Life (And Let It Be)” (Chris Tomlin, Frances Ridley Havergal, Henri Abraham Cesar Malan, Louie Giglio) – Scriptural foundations to hymn lyrics

Photo Credit: Baptist Hymnal, Hymnary