Find Me

Find new posts at coryhartman.com!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Worship Music Trivia

Our church picnic was yesterday, and we always worship and hear the word beforehand.  We tend to do more singing and be more informal than usual.  Here are the songs that we sang to God and each other:
  • "Everlasting God"
  • "Wonderful Grace of Jesus"
  • "We Fall Down"
  • "I Will Serve Thee"
  • "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul"
  • "I'd Rather Have Jesus"
So here's the quiz: arrange these songs in chronological order by original copyright date.  You might not know all of these songs, but do your best with the ones you know.  (Answer below.)




(He'd get it.)



And the answer is . . .
  • "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" (1918, words and music by Haldor Lillenas)
  • "I'd Rather Have Jesus" (1922, words by Rhea F. Miller, music by George Beverly Shea)
  • "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul" (1961, words and music by John W. Peterson)
  • "I Will Serve Thee" (1969, words and music by Gloria and William J. Gaither)
  • "We Fall Down" (1998, words and music by Chris Tomlin)
  • "Everlasting God" (2005, words and music by Benton Brown and Ken Riley)
What is less trivial about this trivia is this observation: all of these songs are less than 100 years old.  With our extremely short memories and rapidly fleeting tastes, it is easy to get worked up about our preferences for "new" music or "old" music.  But in the grand scheme of things (almost two millennia of Christian music, not counting the [lost?] Psalm settings that the apostles used that go back even further), this is all new music.

Make you think?

1 comment:

  1. So many songs - So little time to praise Him.
    I am looking forward to enjoying an eternity with nothing on my agenda but praise!!

    ReplyDelete