September 19, 2024

This Sunday we begin our “Sustaining Grace” Stewardship Campaign, and our Sermons for these six weeks will each focus on an element of the Wesleyan understanding of God’s Grace. In celebration of that, our Choir will be singing a different setting of the Amazing Grace text, utilizing the six varied settings of John Newton’s text that are in our impressive choral library. 

The "Amazing Grace" lyrics are based on John Newton's experience of receiving God's grace and mercy, despite the terrible things he had done while participating in the Atlantic slave trade as captain of a slave ship. After barely surviving a shipwreck, Newton experienced a profound conversion of heart and was eventually ordained by the Church of England in 1764. He would go on to testify against slavery at parliamentary hearings, living long enough to see slavery abolished in 1807, just nine months before he died. (In 1781, Newton published a collection of religious letters, Cardiphonia, which discussed his growing support for the teachings of John Wesley, leader of the Methodist movement.)

Newton’s use of the phrase “a wretch like me” in the first verse of this most famous hymn ever may seem harsh to our modern ears, but, knowing the ramifications of his truly wretched work and ways, Newton could find no other word that so completely encompassed the grief and regret that brought about his conversion. 

We will start our six-week journey of Grace with Mark Hayes’ setting simply titled Grace which employs the English Folk Tune O Waly Waly (The Water is Wide) with a lively piano accompaniment that grows in energy with each verse to that final text that leads us home.. 

Our Choral Prelude this week is a brief but beautiful setting of a profound prayer by the 13th-century Saint Richard of Chichester. The text Day by Daywas made most famous by its inclusion in the 1973 musical Godspell, but today we sing a more subdued setting by the English composer Martin How.

The Choir’s Anthem is one of my favorites, O, For a Closer Walk With God, by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, who taught composition to many generations of English Composers during his long tenure at the Royal College of Music in London. This poignant text was penned by William Cowper, a tortured soul who found his “closer walk with God” through the evangelism of John Newton (author of Amazing Grace), in Olney, Buckinghamshire, where Newton served as Curate. Cowper collaborated with Newton on a book of religious verse, eventually published in 1779 as Olney Hymns. 

As we begin our study of the Wesleyan teachings on grace, Pastor Valarie has chosen Psalm 139 as one of our readings for this Sunday. At the Offertory, the choir will sing my favorite setting of the Psalmist’s words, O God, You Search Me, by Bernadette Farrell. Her modernization of David’s beautiful text for verse two always chokes me up: “with love everlasting you besiege me” – a beautiful image for today as we learn about God’s “Prevenient Grace". 

I give thanks for our amazing choir that gives their Time, Talent and Treasure to sustain our vital Music Ministry. Such gifts are what help to Sustain Grace, and I invite you to prayerfully consider the ways you can be involved in helping our vibrant, welcoming Church home of continue growing as a living expression of God’s boundless love until God’s transforming grace leads us home. 

With a Thankful Heart,
Kenton