This blog is an outgrowth of the ministries I’m involved at Trinity Christian Reformed Church in Ames, Iowa, especially the adult Sunday School classes I’ve taught the past two years with Andrew and Naomi Friend.
Currently, I am teaching with Andrew a class called Psalms for All Seasons, which uses the hymnal of that name as its primary text. Each week we take one Psalm (working our way through the Revised Common Lectionary but several weeks ahead), read it, discuss it, and sing multiple settings of it while Andrew accompanies on piano or organ. So an immediate purpose of this blog is to record what we’re learning about the Psalms and their musical settings each week and to be a place for us (and anyone else who is interested) to discuss them.
I also hope to use this blog to share what we learn in other ministries I’m involved in, including:
• The Sunday School classes I’ve taught with Naomi (more on that later)
• Worship planning (with plenty about Lift Up Your Hearts)
• Children & Worship
• Summer Book Club
• Areopagus (our campus ministry based at Iowa State)
It may also touch upon some of my other interests: gender & the Bible, the intersection of religion and academia, CRC synodical meetings, and such.
The blog is named after one of my favorite hymns, “Earth and All Stars” (LUYH #271/PH87 #433/HFW #225), which is personally significant to me for several reasons.
I sang the hymn growing up from the Lutheran Book of Worship (#558); the lyrics were written by Lutheran pastor Herbert Brokering, a graduate of Wartburg College in Iowa (my current state of residence). I encountered the song again in the Psalter Hymnal when we started worshiping at Hessel Park CRC in Champaign, Illinois, during graduate school and then here at Trinity.
The lyrics are in the spirit of Psalm 148, where all of nature and humanity is called upon to praise God. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook refers to it as a “catalog text, inviting us to join with a whole host of natural and cultural phenomena to ‘sing to the Lord a new song!’” Other examples of this hymn type include “All Creatures of Our God and King” (LUYH #551/PH87 #431/HFW #41/SWM #14), “Praise the LORD, Sing Hallelujah” (LUYH #6/PFAS #148C/PH87 #188/PH57 #304), and other hymns based on Psalm 148.
The first four stanzas cover the heavens (1), weather (2), musical instruments (3) and technology (4). The fifth stanza is about university life:
Classrooms and labs! Come boiling test tubes!
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Athlete and band! Loud cheering people!
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Brokering wrote the song for the 90th anniversary of St. Olaf College, and because of its academic theme, we often sing it during the beginning of the school year.
The sixth stanza’s line “Children of God, dying and rising” make it appropriate for funerals. We sang it at our son’s funeral and I’ve requested that Andrew play it at mine (with all the stops pulled out).
Lift Up Your Hearts includes an Easter variant called “Alleluia! Jesus is Risen” (LUYH #204) with lyrics by Brokering and using the same tune by David Johnson. I’m looking forward to singing it.
Who might be interested in this blog?
• Members of our Psalms for All Seasons Sunday School class
• People interested in incorporating art and music into adult Sunday School classes
• People fascinated by Christian Reformed hymnody
• My parents (maybe)
• Justin Struik and Fred Haan