Memorize This Song

Amazing grace,

how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me…

Are you humming yet? Maybe humming inside?

One of our musical goals is to help you learn songs so well that they’re in your heart the rest of your life. We try to plan many songs often enough so that over time you can learn them by memory. For some songs we want to make sure that happens even if you don’t hear them anywhere else.

Memorizing worship songs—from simple choruses to gospel songs to rich hymns—has amazing benefits:

Focus

When you’re singing by heart, you can focus better—as long as you don’t zone out. But memory removes the need to process information like printed or projected text. At our services we always plan to give text. Actually, for the benefit of all those with basic music literacy, we include notation for any songs that aren’t in our hymnal. (Getting your own copy of our hymnal is very easy and can help reinforce the learning you get at church.) We want you to have help understanding our songs from your very first visit. But while we want to help you learn, we also hope you can eventually get past the aids we give you. Once you can focus on the meaning instead of the medium, you can meditate so much better!

Availability

Memorized songs are always available. There’s no data plan as universal, no smart speaker as responsive, as your own memory. It’s everywhere you go and always ready to start up without even a moment’s notice. When you know a song by heart, you are ready to access its message whenever or wherever you need it. And the usefulness of “Amazing Grace” shouldn’t be limited to cell service, battery life, or wifi. You should be ready to be amazed at God’s grace literally anywhere.

Longevity

Songs combine poetry, music, and life connections. Because of that combination, songs can stir memories even when many other memories —and reading abilities—fade out. When loved ones slide into dementia, hymns can be one of the last ways to connect with them.

There’s an amazing video of an unbeliever (it’s true!) connecting with a dementia patient because she took the time to learn some hymns. The State of New York even recognizes the benefits of connecting to dementia patients through hymns.

So we look forward to seeing you this Sunday! We’ll plan to sing some newer songs as well—that’s one of the balances that’s very important to us. But we definitely plan to include some songs that many of us have memorized over the years. We look forward to sharing them with you.

Todd Jones
Music Pastor

These songbooks also include many of the songs we get from outside our hymnal:

Hymns Modern and Ancient

We’re Singing at the Wilds

The Prodigal Song, 1759 (Part I)

John Macallan Swan, The Prodigal Son (1888). Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1889 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01569

I will arise and go to Jesus; He will embrace me in His arms.
In the arms of my dear Savior, oh, there are ten thousand charms.

He didn’t write the words of the chorus, but they describe his testimony perfectly. This month we’re reminding ourselves of the great call to repentance found in Joseph Hart’s “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.”

Hart (1712-68) knew the Christian gospel from an early age. Two years older than George Whitefield, he also grew up in an age of revivals. During his twenties, he began to claim Christ as his own Savior. But by his own account, he spent most of his thirties as a grace-abusing libertine:

I even outwent professed infidels, and shocked the irreligious and profane, with my horrid blasphemies and monstrous impieties. Hardness of heart was, with me, a sign of good confidence.

In the late 1740s Hart began trying to improve his morals. But fear for his soul took over. He would like awake at night, shivering for fear of hell. He attended services under the preaching of Whitefield and other evangelicals but could not escape his fears.

Finally, in 1757, after a sermon on Revelation 3:10, Hart threw himself completely upon the mercy of God. The effect was immediate and drastic:

Tears ran in streams from my eyes for a considerable while; and I was so swallowed up in joy and thankfulness, that I hardly knew where I was.

Two years later, he published a book of “hymns,” devotional poetry drawing deeply on his own experience. One of them began “Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched.” and sounded like a call to repentance:

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.

The perspective of the poem soon became a calling; by 1760 Hart was building a church in London. They said that 20,000 people attended his funeral. The prodigal had become a beloved preacher.

Contact us for a copy of “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.” Let’s enjoy sharing these powerful words!

Hart’s memoirs quoted in Walter Wilson, History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches, vol. 3 (London, 1810), 345-47.