by Steve | Mar 17, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March/April 2020
By Beth Felker Jones –
Composite image of southern Africa and the surrounding oceans captured by six orbits of the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership spacecraft.
“And he showed me more, a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully and wondered, ‘What is this?’ And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate; it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, ‘It exists, both now and forever, because God loves it.’ In short, everything owes its existence to the love of God.”
These words are from Julian of Norwich, a medieval Christian who recorded a number of revelations of God’s love. The vision above, in which God shows “all that is made” to Julian in the form of “a little thing, the size of a hazelnut,” is one of the most well-known of Julian’s revelations. In light of this vision of creation’s fragility, of its utter dependence on God, Julian marvels that it exists at all, and she draws three truths from it.
The first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God sustains it.
In these elegant points, Julian sums up the Christian doctrine of creation, and she does so in a way that gets at both head and heart. The doctrine of creation is not first about the obvious trigger points in the contemporary North American conversation, and this means that we may require some retraining in order to practice the doctrine well. When we hear the word creation, we have been primed to expect either a tribute to nature or a scientific account of the origins of the universe.
We think of majestic wilderness and towering pines, or we think of evolution or dinosaurs or carbon dating. Christians may well have something to say about those things, but if we get hung up there, we miss the sweetness at the heart of the doctrine. Philosopher Janet Martin Soskice notes that “the biblical discussions of creation” are “concerned not so much with where the world came from as with who it came from, not so much with what kind of creation it was in the first place as with what kind of creation it was and is now.” The doctrine of creation is about the dependence of all things on God the Creator and, as Julian saw, the love the Creator bears for all that he has made.
This means that the doctrine of creation cannot begin with appreciation for natural beauty. Nor can it begin as a conversation with science. It must begin with the character of the God who is Creator, who made and loves and sustains all that is.
In relationship to creation, Christians tend to notice two things about the Triune God. First, God is not one of the things in this world, and so our doctrine about this world will have to take account of the unfathomable difference between it and God. God is utterly distinct from creation; that distinctiveness is behind the psalmist’s cry, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2).
Second, the same God who is not of this world is nonetheless intimately involved in it. Indeed, creation depends on God for its ongoing existence at every moment. The doctrine of creation is about God, and so our education about it should begin not with creation itself but with God’s revealing Word. It is not by studying butterflies or stars but “by faith [that] we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3). The Triune God is not some generic god, and our doctrine of creation will have to be about the relationship between creation and this Creator, the Creator who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “All things came into being through” the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, “and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:3).
This is the personal God who lives in personal relationship with creation. The doctrine of creation points us to faithful practice as creatures of a creator God, creatures who live in a world that exists for God’s loving purposes: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Eph. 2:10). We are created in Christ Jesus, and we are created for Christ Jesus: “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). Jesus is both the source and the purpose of creation. We live in a world that has a point, a world that matters. The good news that “all things” are “for him” has enormous implications for the Christian life.
God Made It: Creatio ex nihilo and the Power of God
Julian’s categories show that talk about the doctrine of creation is not limited to the beginning of all things – God’s original creative action in bringing all things into being – but Christian conversation certainly tends to start there. Scripture starts there too, as the familiar first line of Genesis invokes “the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The first chapters of Genesis show us a world in which God has made all things. Those first chapters set up a way of thinking about the God who created all that is and about God’s relationship with creation. Old Testament scholar Sandra Richter sums up the theological vision of the creation story, highlighting its distinction from ancient Israel’s neighbors.
“Yahweh was a god unlike the others of the ancient Near East, one who stood outside and above his creation, a god for whom there were no rivals and who had created humanity as his children as opposed to his slaves,” she writes. “Thus I think Genesis 1 was intended as a rehearsal of the creation event (where else would you start the story?) with the all-controlling theological agenda of explaining who God is and what his relationship to creation (and specifically humanity) looked like.”
Not just the first chapter of Genesis but also the whole of Scripture points to this creator God. The testimony of Genesis is that of the end of the Bible as well, of the book of Revelation, which praises God with the words, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11). God the Creator has no rivals, yet all that is was made to be in loving relationship with the same sovereign God.
In the Christian tradition, the phrase “creation out of nothing” (in Latin, creatio ex nihilo) synthesizes and affirms the biblical testimony pointing to the kind of act with which God first created everything. God created all that is, the summary phrase announces, out of nothing. The phrase invokes the unchallenged majesty of the creator God, without whom nothing exists or ever has existed. The phrase also points, then, to the truth that all that exists, the totality of creation, is God’s work and belongs to God. There are no exceptions. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “all that is, seen and unseen,” is God’s. The implications of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo can be better understood when we compare the doctrine to the false options that it excludes. If God created out of nothing, then God did not create out of something. Nor, if God created out of nothing, did God create out of his own divine being.
It is easy enough for us to think about acts of creation out of something. The sculptor creates from stone or clay, and the gods of Israel’s ancient Near Eastern neighbors were understood to create out of preexisting chaos or even out of the bodies of their slain enemies. Or, on certain understandings, a god might be understood to create from preexisting matter, from stuff that was already there alongside the god, primordial ooze or a hot, dense core of material that would later explode with a bang. The claim that God created, not out of something, but ex nihilo is a claim that nothing has status alongside God. The repeated testimony of Scripture is that only God is eternal; only God has no beginning; there is none like God.
To deny that God created out of preexisting stuff is to deny that anything, in all creation, has godlike status. In some ways, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is simply an implication of monotheism; it is one more way of affirming that “the LORD is our God, the LORD alone” (Deut. 6:4).
And because the doctrine of the Trinity is a deeper understanding of this core Old Testament reality, creatio ex nihilo is an implication of trinitarian theology as well. There is none like the Lord, none alongside him. The doctrine of creation denies that God created out of something – be it chaos or a sea dragon, primordial ooze or a hot, dense core – but it does not deny that God, having already created, then works in and with all sorts of created things. God’s initial act of creation is ex nihilo, but this does not preclude God’s working with and through that which he has created already. Christian thought has no problem with scientific theories about how creation works, but it cannot bear the idolatry of scientism, which would reduce creation to what can be seen and measured. A world that God created from nothing cannot be a world of bare materialism, bereft of divine reality. A world that God created from nothing cannot be the world of deism, in which God holds back, distant and standoffish, from what he has made. A world ex nihilo is, instead, a world full of God’s presence and power.
To deny that God creates out of his own divine being is to recognize the difference between God and creation. This difference is fundamental to Christian thought, and being reminded of it is the ongoing stuff of Christian life. We can imagine acts of creation out of one’s own being. Reproduction works as an analogy. An infant is formed from the stuff of her parents, hydras reproduce new hydras by budding, and both human babies and newly budded hydras are of the same species as their “creators.”
We could envision a god who fashioned creation out of his own being, making a creation that would itself be divine. The whole world as we see it in Scripture, though, which shows us the God who is more than we can conceive and beyond the things of this world, teaches us something else. So, Christian thought consistently rejects all forms of pantheism, the belief that the world is itself divine, and panentheism, the belief that God and the world are so bound together that God could not exist without the world. Christians see, instead, a measureless and qualitative distinction between Creator and creature, between God and all that has been created.
God is God, and we are not. This is another way in which affirmation of God as Creator ex nihilo is a reaffirmation of the biblical proscription against idolatry. Sinful human beings repeatedly confuse creature and Creator, treating the world as divine, exchanging “the truth about God for a lie” and worshiping and serving “the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25), but the doctrine of creation trains us in another direction, reminding us that there is no god but God. The doctrine of creation affirms the goodness of what God has made, but it makes no allowance for nature cults and zero room for worshiping human beings and pursuing selfish human ends. The doctrine of creation puts Creator and created in their proper places, insisting that created good things are always dependent, always finite, and always subordinate to the Creator.
God does not need creation in order to be who God is; God is not lacking in love or goodness or relationship in any way that makes creation necessary. Theologian Stephen Long explicates, “God does not create because God is lonely. God does not create because God needs friends. God is not the lone patriarch, the strong silent type who secretly desires to ‘open up’ to us but cannot do so without our help. God does not create because God has to.” In this, we can appreciate a great gift. God creates, not because God needs us, but because God wants us. So, Rowan Williams asks us “to bend our minds around the admittedly tough notion that we exist because of an utterly unconditional generosity: The love that God shows in making the world, like the love he shows towards the world once it is created, has no shadow or shred of self-directed purpose in it; it is entirely and unreservedly given for our sake. It is not a concealed way for God to get something out of it for himself, because that would make nonsense of what we believe is God’s eternal nature.”
Creation is the overflowing of God’s goodness and love outside of God’s own life. Creation is excessive. Creation has all the characteristics of a good gift: it is freely given, without constraint; it is given in love for the other, without selfishness; it is not a grasping, grudging thing, with so many strings attached. Creation is the free work of an all-sufficient God of abundance, the God whose love and mercy is always more than we can imagine. Athanasius (c. 296-373) rejoices: “For God is good – or rather, of all goodness He is Fountainhead, and it is impossible for one who is good to be mean or grudging about anything. Grudging existence to none therefore, He made all things out of nothing through his own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.” Creation is made for relationship with this gift-giving God, and “its basis,” says theologian Kathryn Tanner, is “in nothing but God’s free love for us. The proper starting point for considering our created nature is therefore grace.”
The doctrine of creation out of nothing is thus the Christian alternative to other possible ways of understanding the origins of all things. Christian faith is not pantheistic, nor does it subscribe to bare materialism or cold deism. Rather, Christians worship the God who is truly other than the world but, far from disdaining that world, inhabits it powerfully and personally. The God who creates ex nihilo is Lord over and lover of creation. The same God who made the light and the darkness, the waters and the sky, is the one who raised Jesus from the dead, who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17).
Beth Felker Jones is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. This essay is adapted from her book, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically (Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2014, www.bakerpublishinggroup.com). Used by permission.
by Steve | Mar 17, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March/April 2020
Lessons from the Wesleyan Revival
By Winfield Bevins –
On a recent trip to England, I visited several of the historic sites of the Wesleyan revival with a friend. One of the places we visited was City Road Chapel in London, founded in 1778 by John Wesley. We toured the chapel and walked around Wesley’s home. Later, we paused and prayed at Wesley’s tomb. Standing there, I was inspired to read these words on his tombstone, an apt description of his enduring legacy:
“To the memory of the venerable John Wesley, A.M., late fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. This great light arose (by the singular providence of God) to enlighten these nations, and to revive, enforce, and defend, the pure apostolic doctrines and practices of the primitive church: which he continued to do, both by his writings and his labours for more than half a century: And to his inexpressible joy, not only, beheld their influence extending, and their efficacy witness’d in the hearts and lives of many thousands, as well in the western world as in these kingdoms: But also, far above all human power of expectation, liv’d to see provision made by the singular grace of God, for their continuance and establishment to the joy of future generations. Reader, if thou art constrain’d to bless the instrument, give God the glory.”
These words remind us that once upon a time, a man named John Wesley helped start a movement that led to the cultural transformation of the English nation, a movement that eventually spread around the world. But how? And why? What made this man and this movement unique? Why did the teachings of Wesley and his practices ignite a wildfire, while other movements began and fizzled out?
Perhaps there is something in what Wesley learned and what he did that we can learn from today. In fact, let me go one step further. Scholars and church historians know the significance of the story of the Wesleyan revival; however, I have discovered that very few people outside Methodism know anything about this movement and its potential impact for the church today. I believe that the life and ministry of John Wesley has something we desperately need today.
John Wesley sought to recover a basic understanding of what it means to be a real Christian. His original vision was to bring spiritual renewal to the Church of England, which was not well received. Yet despite the growing tension between Wesley and the institutional church, both he and his brother, Charles, were ordained in the Church of England.
While it was Wesley’s intention to remain part of the institutional church, the old wineskins of the Church of England could not contain the new wine of the Wesleyan revival. What started off as a spiritual renewal within the Church of England eventually became its own distinct movement.
By the time of John Wesley’s death in 1791, Methodism was an international church movement with more than 70,000 members in England and more than 40,000 in the new United States, with even more among the mission stations scattered around the world. The seeds of the Methodist movement would continue to grow and spread well beyond Wesley’s lifetime. Just a few years after his death, Methodism in North America had grown to 200,000, with more than 4,000 Methodist preachers. By 1830, official membership in the Methodist Church had reached almost half a million people, and attenders numbered six million. From 1880 to 1905, American Methodism planted more than seven hundred churches per year on average.
At the heart of the Wesleyan revival was the rediscovery of “the pure apostolic doctrines and practices of the early church.” But Wesley did more than read and study the past. He took what he learned and reapplied it, contextualizing it to his own time and place. More than that, he used what he learned to create a disciple-making movement that equipped and empowered thousands of people to join in God’s mission.
Many people want to see the church become a movement again. As much as we want to see a movement today, most of us are unable to envision what that might look like. We are familiar with the status quo, the existing models of church that are largely focused on group gatherings for worship and teaching. To begin to clarify our vision, we can benefit from a closer look at church history. There is no better example of a successful church multiplication movement in the West than the Methodist movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I believe it serves as an indispensable paradigm for how we can multiply today’s church. There are six essential marks of the Wesleyan revival, marks that have some correlation to the marks of other renewal movements.
These six marks provide a genetic structure – much like the DNA in a living organism – mutually working together to create the movement dynamics that led to the Wesleyan revival. It is most helpful to church leaders to think of them as an interconnected ecosystem rather than focusing on the individual parts. Although this list is neither authoritative nor comprehensive, it is designed to offer a simple and accessible snapshot of the key elements that made the Wesleyan revival such a success.
1. Changed Lives. Movements begin as people’s lives are changed by a fresh encounter with the living God. Movements often begin with a catalytic leader like John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, or William Seymour whose life has been touched by God. Sometimes the change is a conversion experience. At other times it is a personal renewal that results in a radical commitment to follow Christ. Movements are not primarily about numbers or slogans, but about changed lives that lead to broader cultural transformation. In renewal movements, there is usually a tipping point where the transformation occurring in the lives of individuals as they embrace a vision for renewal begins to spread like wildfire, leading to broader social and cultural change.
2. Contagious Faith. Movements become contagious when ordinary people share their faith with others. One of the reasons a movement grows and spreads is because it has a simple, life-changing message that ordinary people can easily understand and share with others. Revival can spread as people rediscover the simplicity of the gospel or an essential aspect of the Christian faith that inspires and mobilizes them to action. A common feature of these revival movements is an invitation to commit or join a cause, which is effective in helping recruit others to join the movement. In Christian movements, this growth often results from a renewed passion to share the gospel with others, and this passion spreads from one person to another like a contagion. During the Wesleyan revival, while Wesley and other leaders were effective in preaching to large crowds, it was ordinary men and women who were most effective in spreading the Christian message across England and into North America, resulting in the faith of millions of new believers.
3. The Holy Spirit. Movements emphasize the person and work of the Holy Spirit in peoples’ lives. Fresh encounters with the Holy Spirit create a renewed sense of spiritual vitality among the followers of Christ which leads to personal and corporate renewal. More specifically, the reciprocity of the Word and the Spirit interacting together offers a potent mix that renews peoples’ faith and compels them outward to engage the world in mission. The Word of God becomes the foundational authority and guide for life, while the Holy Spirit fills and empowers people to live holy lives and to share their faith with others.
4. Discipleship Systems. Movements develop systems for discipleship and spiritual growth. This frequently looks like some form of small group structure to facilitate ongoing spiritual growth and commitment. As he preached to large crowds, Wesley quickly discovered that preaching alone was not enough; people needed ongoing support, community, and structure to help them continue on the spiritual journey. To remedy this, he developed a holistic ecosystem designed to help people grow at every stage of their journey. This involved an interlocking discipleship group structure. Each of these structures gathered people into groups of different sizes focused on different aspects of the discipleship process in order to help individuals grow in their faith. There were also spiritual practices that undergirded and reinforced the entire discipleship system.
5. Apostolic Leadership. Movements have an apostolic impulse – drawn from the models and methods of the early church – that empowers and mobilizes all of God’s people for mission. John Wesley and the early Methodists were not trying to be innovative or original. They drew their inspiration from the faith and spirituality of the early church, especially the church of the first two centuries (the pre-Constantine era). Methodism has been referred to as a lay apostolic movement within the Church of England, which alludes to the recovery of ministry for every Christian believer, not just the ordained leadership. The apostolic impulse of the early church to spread the gospel and plant new churches moved the early Methodists to develop ways to empower and release every member of the body of Christ to use their gifts and talents for God. Wesley personally worked to empower thousands of laity, many who later became leaders of the movement. These ordinary, non-ordained Christian men and women became the foundation of the next generation as the movement spread across the Western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
6. Organic Multiplication. Movements have an outward missional focus that naturally leads to the multiplication of disciples and new communities of faith. Movements don’t become movements by naval gazing, but by looking outward, by inviting people in, and by growing and multiplying its mission and influence. There is a natural dynamism and excitement among the people that makes them contagious, helping the movement spread widely and organically from one person to another. We can describe the growth of movements as organic because it tends to happen naturally, rather than being forced by the leadership at the top level. Movements look outward and grow and multiply as people’s lives are changed, they begin making disciples, and then start new ministries and communities of faith to facilitate the ongoing growth of more individuals.
Unique Moment. Every movement and every context is unique. The Methodist movement successfully responded to the unique needs of its time with the timeless gospel of Jesus Christ. In a similar way, we must seek to understand our unique context and culture, to bring God’s timeless Word to a changing culture.
My prayer is that in some small way, reading this article has led you to draw inspiration from the Wesleyan movement. I hope and pray that in learning about John Wesley, the Spirit will spark a similar multiplication movement yet again. May the Sovereign Lord do something powerful again in our day.
Winfield Bevins is director of church planting at Asbury Seminary and author of Marks of a Movement: What the Church Today Can Learn from the Wesleyan Revival (Zondervan,)
Portrait by George Romney (1789), National Portrait Gallery, London.
by Steve | Mar 17, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March/April 2020
By Courtney Lott –
Photo by Brett Sayles, Boise, Idaho. Courtesy of Pexels.
“I’m pretty sure there are Bernina 770 sewing machines in heaven. And I’ll be spending some time in the tabernacle with the seamstresses talking about banner making for the King!”
I had to laugh at this comment from my Sunday school teacher. One of the deaconesses of my church and a wonderful friend, this woman is not only a biology professor, but she also sews the banners that hang at the front of our sanctuary. The colors change along with the liturgical calendar, rotating between green, purple, white, and gold. With each new celebration, the artwork in our place of worship changes.
At the center of these beautiful colors are stitched symbols depicting different theological truths. Congregants can find descriptions of the meaning behind them at the back of our bulletin. Sometimes the images are reminiscent of a Celtic cross, while others are more straightforward, like a crown of thorns.
While these banners add a layer of beauty to our place of worship, they mean so much more than mere aesthetics. Though we live in a time and place wherein a great many congregants read, there is much to be said in telling the biblical story through art, in using talents like this to help communicate to those who learn differently.
There is a reason why God told his people to design the tabernacle of the Old Testament the way he did. It’s easy to get caught up in measurements most of us don’t understand, but the artistry described in the pages of Exodus is breath-taking. Curtains of finely twisted linen bursting with color form the walls, gold shines from the dishes and the lamp stand, intricate designs are carved into the wood, and angels spread their wings over the mercy seat.
Within this imagery, he also conveyed deep theological truths to his people. As much as they saw his joy in beauty in the temples designs, they also saw his holiness in the curtain separating them from the most holy place, his mercy in the sacrifices. In the craftsmanship and creativity, God encouraged his people to use their talents to image his character, his heart, his kingship.
The temple is a physical representation of the throne room of God, the true king of Israel. It was meant to remind the people to whom they were meant to bend the knee. No human king or prophet or priest could truly save them, only the Lord their God.
Created to Create. Though we no longer have a temple the same way Israel did, we are still called to reveal the redemption story through our art, both in our churches and in our daily lives. Take a moment to count the colors in a sunset, to differentiate between bird songs, or stand in awe of a clear starry night. Our God is an artist. The ultimate artist. If we are made in his image, then we are called to create as well.
Unfortunately, sometimes Christians get weird about art.
Whether it’s because of the commandment not to make images and worship them – or because we sanitize the authenticity out of artistic expression – our films, music, and the like are often cheesy at best, or low quality at worst. But as representatives of the God who created the universe, we ought to be producing art of the highest quality.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24).
It is an honor, an act of worship, part of our witness, to reflect our creator. Like the servants with their talents in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, we are to take the abilities God has given us and put them to work to the best of our ability. To shortchange it with laziness or inauthenticity is to bury it in the ground where it will never be seen.
Paint Brushes and Paints. The deaconess at my church who creates the banners does not do it alone. Instead, she works together with another woman who comes up with the designs. The first says that she could never dream up the images on her own, while the other could never bring them to life. These two women are a beautiful example of how the body of Christ ought to work together to advance the kingdom.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:21-22).
This is true not only for artists, but scientists, mathematicians, mechanics, lawyers, and writers alike.
Our heavenly father didn’t give us all the same gifts. His character is so wide and infinite that no one man or woman could represent him well on their own. Instead, he scatters the beautiful aspects of his personality across his creation, creating unique individuals to shine like different pieces of a mirror.
Separately, we are shards of glass, but together we form a reflective surface that reveals the one in whose image we were made. May we honor God with the talents he has given us, using the gifts to glorify the giver.
Courtney Lott is the editorial assistant at Good News.
by Steve | Mar 17, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March/April 2020
By Jim Patterson –
“The Underground Railroad” is an 1893 painting by Charles T. Webber in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
In four-part harmony without any instrumentation, members of Pruitt Hill United Methodist Church praised the Lord at a long-ago funeral in Greeneville, Tennessee.
“Have you got good religion? Cert’nly, Lord! / Have you got good religion? / Cert’nly, Lord! / Have you got good religion? / Cert’nly, Lord! / Cert’nly, cert’nly, cert’nly, Lord!”
A 9-year-old boy attending his great-grandmother’s funeral sat listening, enraptured by “Certainly Lord,” an old spiritual song. In that moment, the direction of James W. Story’s life was settled. “I just sat there listening to the worship and the rhythm,” said Story, the director of music at Gallatin First United Methodist Church in Gallatin, Tennessee. “I knew at that point in time that music moved me.”
During his long career teaching music at two area high schools and Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Story pursued his self-appointed mission to keep African American spirituals relevant to future generations. He’s produced two stage shows and a CD so far on the topic. The CD is “New World Spirituals: 1619-2019.”
“There’s a generation of young folk that really have no idea,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want to talk about African American (spiritual) music because they are old slave songs. But one must remember that those songs were part of the civil rights struggle.”
Story was influenced by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), whose most popular work, “New World Symphony,” was influenced by African American melodies derived from slavery in North America. “I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies,” Dvořák said to The New York Herald in May of 1893. “These must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them.”
The stories behind many spirituals are just as interesting as the melodies and lyrics, Story believes. “The spirituals survived because it was part of history,” Story said. “Coded escape songs.” For instance, songs like “Wade in the Water” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” were code songs. They warned escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water to avoid dogs trying to track them. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” meant use the astronomical Big Dipper to help navigate north.
Born in Greeneville, Tennessee, Story started playing piano at 13 and was a drum major in high school and college. He graduated from Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee, in 1977 and earned a master’s degree in music education from Austin Peay in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1986. After teaching at White House and Gallatin high schools, he moved to Volunteer State Community College, where he established that school’s music recording program.
“Even in my choral groups at Gallatin High School and Vol State, they always knew that we were going to do a spiritual, or some spirituals,” Story said. “I always had (spirituals) in my mind.”
Without intervention, many African American spirituals might fade away, Story said. “My whole goal is to make sure that they don’t die,” he said. “These church hymnals, especially the United Methodist hymnals, they have been Europeanized. Some of those notational systems, you can’t get the true inflections of the sound in which they were perceived, the emotion working and singing.
“Singing was an avenue of rest and support and confidence, just to pull (slaves) out of the prison in which they existed.”
The United Methodist Church does have an Africana Hymnal Project, which saves African American spirituals along with photographs and original performance practices.
Years ago, Story interviewed American gospel singer J. Robert Bradley (1919-2007) – who counted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahalia Jackson, known as the Queen of Gospel, among his fans – for a research project. Story says Bradley best summed up the importance of African American spirituals.
“The spiritual gives hope,” Bradley said. “It fires up the inner power and gives me hope that I want to move higher. It makes me want to see what’s at the top of the mountain. The spiritual elevates my mind.”
Jim Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee.
by Steve | Mar 17, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March/April 2020
The Rev. Tom Albin of The Upper Room addresses the 2020 Pre-General Conference Briefing in Nashville. Albin is heading up GC2020 prayer effort at UMCprays.org and is wearing a “prayer scarf” that everyone who comes to Minneapolis will receive. Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.
By Tom Albin –
Gracious God fill me with your wisdom, love, and compassion – that I may pray in your name, intercede in your nature, and align with your will. Incline the hearts of every United Methodist to your heart – that we may all love alike, even though we do not think alike.
As we intercede for each elected delegate and alternate, grant us courage and clarity to pray with the Holy Spirit for each one – regardless of the position he or she holds on the issues that divide us. Help every delegate and every alternate know and feel our prayers supporting them on their journey of discernment.
Lord Jesus Christ, bless the Council of Bishops, bless the staff serving the General Conference, bless the volunteers, guests, and visitors. Give us all the mind of Christ, that we may know how to pray. Give us eyes open to see each person and her or his needs – that our prayers might be a part of your answer to those needs.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy your consolations. May your kingdom come in us and your will be done in us – on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Has God given you a burden to pray for the 2020 General Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 5-15? Do you feel a need, or desire, or urgency to pray with and for the elected delegates, alternates, leaders, participants, and guests?
I believe God is calling you and me and many in our global United Methodist family to pray earnestly and persistently for our church. The prayer above is the prayer I feel called to pray. You have permission to use it, edit it, or make it your own.
Below you will find information about the resources created to help our beloved church pray our way into a season of blessing and sending. The time of winners and losers is over. This is a season for separation and blessing. Like the New Testament Church during the second missionary journey, we have irreconcilable differences, just as Paul and Barnabas had irreconcilable differences (see Acts 15:36-41). Just as they went on different journeys, it is time for the United Methodist Church to pursue different missionary paths to proclaim Christ in ways that each group believes to be faithful.
At the request of The United Methodist Council of Bishops Worship Committee, The Upper Room and United Methodist Communications have collaborated to create a way for the entire denomination to pray together for 40 days before the General Conference begins – and through the gathering.
There is no question that this will be a historic event in the life of the global Methodist movement. For all of us who are not elected delegates, alternates, leaders or staff, our part is to pray: as an individual, as a family, as a small group, a local church, district, annual conference, or Central Conference. This is your personal invitation to engage your prayer with the prayers of 12 million United Methodists around the world. We have one goal in mind, to create an atmosphere of prayer for all those elected to make decisions on our behalf and for the future direction for our Wesleyan mission in the years ahead.
Prayer Action #1. From UMCprays.org, download the free 40-Days of Prayer and make it available to your family, local church, district, and annual conference. The PDF text is currently available in the four official written languages of the General Conference: English, French, Portuguese, and Kiswahili. The 40 Days of Prayer follows the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary. Each day there is a passage of scripture to read, followed by a personal reflection written by one person selected from a diverse group of United Methodist delegates, members, and friends from around the world; followed by a prayer for the day. The Prayer Guide also includes information about how it may be used in a family or small group setting.
Prayer Action #2. On Sunday, March 22, play the video from UMCprays.org for your congregation which will introduce the content and process for the rest of that week. Each week, there will be a brief video featuring one active bishop from a different region of the United States and the world. Each video will provide instruction and encouragement to pray with and for the elected leaders who will gather in Minneapolis. Bishop Bob Hoshibata, Chairperson for the Council of Bishops Worship Committee, will call the UM Church to pray and prepare for the first day of the 40 Days of Prayer on March 26, when we will all pray with and for the 862 delegates, the hundreds of alternates, the Council of Bishops, and all those involved in the 2020 General Conference.
On each successive Sunday prior to General Conference, a different bishop will lead prayer for the delegates of a specific area within United Methodism: Sunday, March 29, the Northeast Jurisdiction; Sunday, April 5 (Holy Week), the Central Conferences; Sunday, April 12 (Easter Sunday), the Southeast Jurisdiction; Sunday, April 19, the North Central Jurisdiction; on Sunday, April 26, the South Central Jurisdiction; and on Sunday, May 3, the Western Jurisdiction.
Prayer Action #3. Listen to a scriptural Podcast created by UMCOM to aid United Methodists to reflect each day of the General Conference on the biblical text for the plenary worship service of the day.
Prayer Action #4. UMCprays.org is the website where all the free videos, podcasts, and language versions of the 40 Days of Prayer are available. This prayer website will have additional prayer resources and online coaching to help you engage others in prayer.
Prayer Action #5. Pray for the Dakotas-Minnesota GC2020 Host Committee chaired by the Rev. Jim Haun and Becky Boland; along with the Prayer Team led by the Rev. Pam Serdar who is designing and staffing a General Conference Prayer Room.
Prayer Action #6. Intercessory Prayer Volunteers will be available at the General Conference. Anyone interested in serving in this role should contact me at TAlbin@upperroom.org. Intercessory prayer volunteers pray quietly in each of the legislative sessions, pray with delegates before and after legislative sessions, and pray during the plenary sessions of the General Conference.
Prayer Action #7. Volunteer Spiritual Directors will be available at the General Conference. The Upper Room is responsible to recruit, train, and supervise these individuals to help those who desire an opportunity to receive spiritual support as each one seeks God’s will and direction during the General Conference. Those interested in serving in this role should contact me at the above email address for more information.
Tom Albin is the dean of the chapel at the Upper Room and the Director of Spiritual Formation and Congregational Life.
