Friday, August 04, 2006

Sing All the Verses -- Part 3

This is the last installment in this series, unless I stumble across something pretty amazing. This time I want to point out that two of our most famous (and deserving so!) hymns that we've sung in our churches for years are missing verses. Since the hymns are so popular I won't post all the verses, just the ones that are usually missing (how's that for irony?). If you want to see all the words, check here and here.

And Can it Be?
(5th of 6 verses, appeared between the verse when the chains fall off
his soul and the verse that begins 'No condemnation now I dread...')


Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Saviour in my heart.


When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
(Originally the 4th verse, between 'See from his head, his hands...'
and 'Were the whole realm...')


His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.


I don't know why these started getting left out, but who cares. The point is, we should sing them! They're great! So if you know your 'worship leader' or if you lead your services... sing them! :)

2 comments:

Chris Hillcoat said...

At my church we sing all the verses of "When I Survey", but only five verses of "And Can it Be?"

Unfortunately the hymnbook has already been printed so until we get a projector/screen we may be stuck!

Julian Freeman said...

Hey Chris, good to hear from you!

Yeah, I can sympathize with that problem. Sometimes I have trouble with the idea of using the song sheets like we do every week, but then I see the freedom and flexibility it gives us in planning the services and I love it! All the same, given my druthers, I think we'd have powerpoint... but only if there was someone there to operate it properly!

Out of the hundreds of services I've been at where they've used powerpoint, I can count on one hand the number of times it's been used without a glitch. Who knew it could be so hard to switch between slides?! Inevitably it becomes more a distraction than an aid.