MUSIC NOTES
Adult Choir will begin rehearsing on Thursday, September 9th! We are looking for more members to help us praise the Lord! All high school age youth and adults are invited to join us! If you have been looking for a ministry to join, why not join the choir! Psalm 135:3 says “Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; celebrate his lovely name with music”. There is no better way to answer the call of this passage than to come and make a joyful noise with us! We would love to have more women singing soprano and alto and we are especially in need of men to sing tenor and bass. Rehearsals are each Thursday evening from 7-8:30pm in the Choir Room.
Music Moment Great Hymns of the Faith: HOW GREAT THOU ART
Few things in nature seem as awe-inspiring as thunder and lightning. For the Christian, the flash and echoing din are a reminder of the greatness of our God. That is how it was for Carl Boberg, one day in 1886. Carl Gustaf Boberg (1859-1940) was a Swedish pastor, and later a senator in the Swedish parliament. He went for a walk one summer day and got caught in a sudden thunderstorm. The rolling thunder and torrents of rain, followed by the return of the bright sunshine and the singing of the birds overwhelmed him. He dropped to his knees in worship. Later, out of that experience, Pastor Boberg created a lovely poem about the greatness of God.
Though he did not realize it at the time, that poem would one day become one of the most popular hymns of the latter part of the twentieth century. But before that happened, the song was to pass through many hands, and cross many national boundaries. Several years after he penned the words, Carl Boberg attended a church service and was surprised to hear them sung by the congregation to an old Swedish melody. Shortly after it was introduced in Sweden, the hymn was translated into German. Then, in 1907, the German version was translated into Russian and published in a Russian hymn book in 1922. That is how it came to the attention of English missionary Stuart Hine a year or so later. He and his wife were serving in the Ukraine when they heard the song, and they began using it as a duet in evangelistic services.
God Himself is infinitely great, so that is bound to characterize all He does. Job says He does “great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number” (Job 5:9). One of the most wonderful displays of this is found over our heads on any clear, starry night. “Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power” (Isa. 40:26). As the psalmist says, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised” (Ps. 48:1). And “His greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 148:3).
The believer has access to this omnipotence by faith. “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.” And “those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40:29, 31). In times of difficulty and distress, it is encouraging to renew our faith in the greatness of the Lord. Problems that seem overwhelming shrink before our awareness of the One we serve. In the words of our hymn, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder / Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made, / I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r
