Back from Nashville, with the fading after glow

One of the privileges of my job as editor and occasional reporter is the opportunity to go from time to time to a conference.

I  go with a three-fold purpose: to cover the event for our Christian Renewal readers; secondly, to hopefully be edified by the content; and thirdly, to experience the fellowship of Christians from a wider circle of churches than I am used to experiencing at home.

How can that not be encouraging. As one of my colleagues who emails me regularly said, jokingly, for which he now repents: “Let me know when you come back from the mountaintop experience and its afterglow.”

There is some truth in what he says. Of course, nothing can compare to a meeting with Jesus Christ, Moses and Elijah on the Mount and hearing the voice of God. So we do need to tread carefully here.

But there is definitely a high to gatherings such as the one I covered recently (report on page 12) in Nashville, Tennessee organized by Getty Music. The singing was inspiring; the speakers were some of the best the Reformed/evangelical community has to offer; and the location was in a place I had never seen before.

One leaves such gatherings, like the disciple Peter, reluc-tantly, but definitely with a spring in one’s step and with joy in the heart, because what I heard encouraged me in terms of the future of the broader church.

 The Gettys have a platform to a wider audience than many of us can otherwise reach. Their contacts in America’s evangelical/reformed communities are significant. And the technology available today makes the distribution of their music and their deep loving concerns and ideas for worship so much more effective in terms of influencing this present generation in a good, positive and more biblical way.

As Reformed Christians who have sung the psalms for generations, we might be like the older son in the parable of the Prodigal, wondering what took you so long to get to where we’ve been all along. But that would be
arrogant, ungrateful and ungraceful.

Could it be that we also have something to learn as we go forward in faith? Could the Lord use this movement as a bridge to bring the evangelical church in closer harmony with the Reformed community?

What I did learn or was reminded of is that the Psalms sung on a regular basis implant the words and ideas of Scripture into our minds and hearts. Keith Getty was concerned for a generation of evangelicals who have no more than 30-40 songs that they can recite. John MacArthur said that over his almost 50 years in the ministry, his mind was filled with psalms and song lyrics that help him in both his private and public prayers and to which he meditates through his waking hours.

That’s the heritage we Reformed have grown up feeding on.

Sometimes we need others new to the banquet to remind us what an excellent diet we’ve been given.

Two other articles in this issue touch on the Psalm theme, one from Brian Lee on preaching the Psalms, the other, a new short series by Nick Smith on why we sing in church.

John Van Dyk, Editor

Christian Renewal Magazine