| The Indelible Grace project reinvents the hymn
By Jodi Anderson
Staff Writer
For most of my life, I did not have a very high opinion of hymns. As a child singing in the Baptist church, I remember looking around at the congregation and thinking, “Why does everyone look so bored?”
After leaving the church, my family explored the charismatic movement. I embraced the emotions that the songs evoked, but in my teen years and on into my InterVarsity experience in my first year of college, I saw that people who sang that music could be just as bored-looking as the uptight Baptist hymn-singers. Something was missing, but I was not really sure what.
Dissatisfied with the direction of my life (or lack thereof), I dropped out of college and moved to Nashville. My friends took me to a Presbyterian Church in America church in the suburb of Franklin, Christ Community Church. As I walked into the college Sunday school class, late, I realized that they were singing hymns! But these were not your grandma’s hymns; they had new, upbeat music. And no one looked half asleep. These were 20-somethings, raising hands, worshiping God, and singing challenging lyrics like “Go then earthly fame and pleasure/Come disaster, scorn, and pain/In Thy service pain is pleasure/With Thy favor loss is gain.”
How did this come about? “I was going to teach a series in Sunday school on fellowship, called ‘Gospel Driven Community,” said CCC college pastor, Kevin Twit. “I started looking through the hymnal that we use in church because I wanted to introduce some new songs that would tie into this theme, and ‘Blessed Be the Tie That Binds’ was the only hymn on that topic. I had a 19th century Presbyterian hymnal, and it had probably ten hymns on the topic, and some of them were very rich. We did not have any tunes to sing with them so for awhile we would sing the tune to ‘Be Thou My Vision’ or ‘Come Thou Fount’ to everything. Eventually somebody would come up with a new tune, and it just kind of snowballed from there.” (Incidentally, the first day I set foot in the class, Matthew Smith, a major contributor to the project, debuted a hymn for which he had written new music.)
As a minister to a group of young adults, Twit has a lot to offer. Before becoming a pastor for the PCA church and spiritual leader of Reformed University Fellowship at Belmont University in Nashville, he was a professional musician. He toured with the David Mullen Band, which beat out DC Talk for Best New Artist at the Dove Awards in 1989. However, the band’s promising career was cut short when the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit it big that same year. The two bands’ shared label, Word, focused its energy and attention on the Chili Peppers and left Twit’s band out in the cold. But his experiences with the music industry and young audiences gave him the tools to produce a project which fused the rich theology found in hymns with the music of the current culture.
His efforts struck a chord with the members of the group. They recognized the beauty of the old poetry. The hymns had a lot to teach and with accessible melodies, we found ourselves learning amazing things about the grace of God and what it means to be a Christian. It was at this time that I began to think critically about my faith.
And I was not the only one. Inspired by the wisdom of the old hymn writers, like William Cowper, John Newton and Isaac Watts, some people began to write their own accompaniments and teach them to the class. Sandra McCracken, who sang many of the songs and also wrote a couple of tunes, tells how the hymns moved from the classroom to the studio. “Anytime we’d get together, at Sunday School class, wherever, we’d be playing guitars and singing, and we’d play these old songs, all ten verses of them, she said, “So at some point, we realized we had all these resources around us, and we figured we’d try to record a few of them.”
These jam sessions led to the Indelible Grace project. The name was taken from a hymn by Augustus Toplady, “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” which contained a lyric describing God’s engraving our names upon the palms of his hands. “The image is such a great picture of the Gospel, because in Old Testament times, the followers of Baal would carve the name of their god into their palms as a reminder to them,” explained Twit, “The pain would be a reminder of whose they were. And God, through Isaiah, takes that image and turns it completely on its head. It’s not that we inflict pain upon ourselves so that God would notice us, but God actually inflicts pain upon himself, so that he’ll never forsake us or leave us.”
Members of Christ Community college group have released two CDs inspired by this beautiful image of God’s grace, “Indelible Grace” and “Indelible Grace II: Pilgrim Days.” They are currently working on a third. The musical style is mostly acoustic folk, as it was written by several independent folk artists. There are several guest appearances, including Andy Osenga and Cason Cooley of the Normals, Matt Odmark of Jars of Clay, and Wes King.
Last year they received an endowment through the Lilly Foundation and were able to host a conference on using hymns in worship last September. With the money they have also been able to take the project on the road. The band is made up of members of the Sunday school group. Because many of the musicians have pursuits of their own, the band is constantly rotating members. On Palm Sunday, the Indelible Grace band will be leading LOFT. If you never have been or never plan to go to any other LOFT, I suggest that you attend this one. It’s fun, it’s worshipful, and it is completely unique.
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