New Life for Old Songs

This is Matthew Smith. I met Smith when I was in college. Incidentally, I was close friends with his now-wife, and Smith stayed in my dorm room for a night while visiting her. He belongs to a new generation of songwriters. Unlike most in Nashville, Smith is seeking to give fresh life to old hymns. His "Indelible Grace" movement and band, a by-product of Reformed University Fellowship, brings worshippers into the presence of the Almighty, almost exclusively through hymns and church songs long neglected. This, friends, is a good thing.

Theology and spiritual meat has often to be 'recaptured' by each generation's worship leaders. The bride longs to sing songs that transcend her here and now. I know I do. A diet of K-Love, without meat and veggies, can tire a soul. Hymns (good ones, at least) are the meat and veggies of the worshippers diet: perhaps not the tastiest at the time, but deeply nourishing.

My question is, who of us can breathe fresh life into at least some of the thousands of Wesley's hymns? And what 'new hymns' - celebrating the Triune God of grace and holiness - are being produced in our churches? Sadly, not enough. It's far too easy to crank out a formulaic worship song. But for those who, like Smith, are willing to plum the depths of church history, great worship music is there for the taking.