"Folk, Gospel, and Scripture Songs" Video Transcript

Video Transcript: Folk, Gospel, Scripture Songs

Steve Elzinga  

Worship music streams, we've looked at hymns, we look at contemporary music, we're going to look at a little bit of folk, gospel, mainly in Scripture, songs, songs that come right out of the Bible. And again, this whole section is dealing with different genres of music. It's good to have, I think it's good to have a little bit of all kinds of different music. And and so, let's look at folk songs. folk songs are really it's hard to really quantify what a folk song is. It's sort of everyday songs. And I think every country has their own folk songs. It's, you know, it's just average songs, simple songs, that average people wrote, a lot of times you don't even know who wrote you know, the song. "singing from memory lane"

Steve Elzinga  

Little folks I'm sure we know who wrote a little songs that you make up in your own church. I wrote a song for our church. Just a fun little "singing from memory lane". And I forget there's some second verse to it and then it goes, some of our reading your Bible something then it goes "singing from memory lane". So just they're just fun, you know, singing in the park, kind of songs what I learned a long time ago. "singing from memory lane" A lot of these kind of signs just have a simple little thing and then you just change the words "singing from memory lane". So there are fun little songs that people can learn, you know, you know one time through and they already know it. So folk songs and having those kinds of songs fun songs for people to do that is a good idea. There's a whole genre of gospel songs "singing from memory lane".

Steve Elzinga  

A lot of the songs in the Gospel tradition have to do with life is hard and so we're looking forward to heaven looking forward to going there. So that's kind of the theme. Some of gospel songs have sort of, on the black tradition, there'll be this kind of chorus that everyone is singing. And then the soloist will sort of sing kind of a counterpart to it kind of the solo part. And then the choir will always with that simple kind of folk gospelly phrase, maybe it's a simple phrase that they keep going over and over again. And then the singer, the main singer will sort of add all the spices and different ideas of the verses and so on. Kids Songs, fun songs "singing from memory lane". So a lot of these things have been translated kids still love them. I think two weeks ago we did it our service "singing from memory lane".

Steve Elzinga  

As you get faster and faster so people can't keep up. It's just fun little songs to do. It's, you know, you have all age groups in the church, why not do something for each age group? scripture songs. It's not every church does it. A lot of the hymns were in some ways scripture songs. The tune writer would go to the Scripture, go to the songs and look at the ideas, but then they sort of versified them, they changed the words, they made them rhyme. And a lot of times people think that you have to do that because otherwise the scripture won't fit your you know, your tune. And we started about 10 years ago started writing songs right to Scripture, so that when people learn the song, they not only know the song, but they know the Scripture and they know, it's not a versified it's not a poem ized version of the scripture it's the actual things straight right out of the Bible. So they actually know the scripture we we did one in the matter write your own song. Last psalm 100 "singing from memory lane". Another one soul mates "singing from memory lane". 

Steve Elzinga  

Little coda or little bridge in there and everything. So Psalm eight see we got a psalm I think 151 I mean 51 "singing from memory lane". I was doing this little what would this be called a little sequence intro "singing from memory lane". And I could just stop probably sit here and just do that for an hour "singing from memory lane". 

Steve Elzinga  

So we have probably 30 of these somewhere in, in this course that you can download. We have the lead sheets for them. Actually we have the, the the melodies written up that way. Yeah. So you can just download some downloadable

Marie Elzinga 

off of our website.

Steve Elzinga  

And it will be here to put it on the course. Then there's like global songs. Now global songs is hard to know what is the global song because it depends on what country you live in. One person's folk song is another person's global song. So here in the United States, if we sometimes we look for songs that the rest of the world is doing, we might as well start learning something Have these songs now because in heaven, we're gonna have to do them and we'll be doing them together so we might as well get started now. So, in the United States, a lot of Spanish songs are sung this one I think it's quite popular "singing from memory lane".

Steve Elzinga  

Then for those of you that Philippines "singing from memory lane". So you know for some of you the English songs or your global songs because you sing totally different language, but I think it's good to expand the horizons of your church, let them learn some of those things, especially if you have connections to other countries. What it does is just remind us that we're not that this thing called Christianity, the body of Christ is way bigger than just your church and, and the biggest church in your city, the biggest church in your country. It's It's the largest global enterprise, but group of any any kind of group anywhere in the world. And we're all part of it. And and and we're brothers and sisters in the Lord. Song topics. So as you're picking out your songs, songs, sort of say something or they answer problem, there's usually a problem and then maybe this song answers the problem. So I'm just going to give you a list of kind of the problems that that you know, you're looking for songs that will do something like that there's people's suffering loss. So, you know, having a few comfort songs in your repertoire, or people are feeling guilty, forgiveness, or people feeling fear. So some song that talks about fear but gives this sense of safety or anger, acceptance, depression, optimism, arrogance, humility, worry, a lot of people are have worry and then, you know, these sing this song of faith and how we live by faith, not by sight. That's a song of the gettys right? Yeah, that's so that's a that's another stream. Right? Who are they? Again,

Marie Elzinga 

Keith and kristyn Getty and they've also been connected with Stuart Towns And I believe his last name is they're the ones that wrote in Christ alone, which

Steve Elzinga  

in Christ alone is quite

Marie Elzinga 

a, I would say a global song. Yeah. At this point, they write what we're considering to be modern hymns. Yeah. So

Steve Elzinga  

they have a hymn like quality,

Marie Elzinga 

hymns high quality, thoughtful words, they put a lot of thought and care into the words and they tried to be, yeah, have this broad range of themes for their songs, so.

Steve Elzinga  

Sadness, people are sad, you need some songs of joy, defeatism, you know, we can't do anything but in Christ, we can do all things. So songs that sort of like, you know, pump everyone up for the week or people are discouraged. They need to be encouraged. You know, there's, there's songs that talk about, you know, why are we being wishy washy about, about our Christianity, let's be committed and you know, Both insecurity and belonging, tired, a lot of people just worn out for from a hard week and they come to church, and they just need to be energized and they need some songs that are upbeat and like, you know, get them pumping and get their hands clapping, get the blood movie addiction, you know, people are addicted to many different things and they need to know that in Christ there you can you can defeat some of these things, chaos and rules, rules and grace. I mean, sometimes we need rules we need. God gives us His commandments and he tells us you know, if you want to live a good life, here it is. And but sometimes the rules you know, become a burden, and we need to hear a song of grace. There's people feeling all alone, lonely, and then there's the body of Christ. 

Steve Elzinga  

Just simple topics in a way it needs science and grace. Love joy, peace, hope, encouragement, challenge, commitment, victory, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, that gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, that's also the body of Christ the church, you know, signs about the church honoring the church and you know, you know, who are we together, we all come here to worship, faith, boldness, you know, in of course, praise we come to give our praise to God, and why not a little fun. We had four boys, and we knew they were going to grow up as PKs we call them in the United States, and that stands for preacher's kid. And that can be that can be tough on kids growing up as the preacher's kid and people have different expectations of them and we didn't want them Our kids to think negatively about yours. A lot of people, you know, complain about stuff at church, they come home and complain about the sermon or whatever, some people or something going on to the church. And then all you're doing is telling your kids that church has all these problems, and it's negative, and then when they grow up, why would they go to church? 

Steve Elzinga  

So we wanted our kids to have a positive sense about church. And so we call that we actually called Sunday special day. And we did things with the kids after church and church was part of that special day. And part of that being special. It's just fun. People come together in I've observed people and I watch people just talking in the restaurant or on the street or anywhere, and someone is always laughing. It's there's a laughter soon follows as people talk because people they want to be they want their hearts lifted up a little bit and we were made for a little bit of fun And why not? Now I, you know, the problem with church is we have two models. This is kind of an aside. But we have two and I think it relates to worship, we have two models of, of worship in our heads. One is the temple version, and one is the synagogue. See, you know, in ancient Israel, there was the temple, and the temple had the Holy of Holies. 

Steve Elzinga  

And no one was allowed into the holy, the priests was allowed, once a year, and he had to put smoke underneath the curtain and fill the whole holy of holies. And he had to bring the blood, you know, of an animal for the sins of himself and the people and once a year you can do that. It was like, you know, the Holy of God's present God is holy reverence. And so some people have that idea that worship is you're coming to the Holy of Holies. And it's honor Reverend and you should be silent. And you should be shaking hands with somebody and say, Hey, good morning. How are you doing?

Steve Elzinga  

But then on the other side, there was the synagogue. And the synagogue was the weekly thing that the local community would gather. And they would have classes and they would learn things, and they would talk and they would laugh, and they would eat. And they would, they would do more of the social kinds of things. So they have the temple. And then they have the synagogue and two separate places, and we have one. And so we're trying to do the temple stuff, sometimes you know, where you're awe and singing very softly and you're, you're bowed your head in reverence, and you're praying and so on. But then we have the synagogue and it's in the same place. So in our services, we need to leave a little room for all those things. So a little bit of fun, maybe some fun songs to sing. I think it's okay, as long as we, you know, have some balance between you know, we're doing some synagogue things right now.

Steve Elzinga  

And later on, we'll do some couple things. As a worship leader, you need to be listening. And finding new songs. You know, I guess that's what you do a lot of you do that or 

Marie Elzinga 

I am listening to what's on the radio station. And I think you'd mentioned before that sometimes that's fairly limited. There's also different websites that I'll go to we'll put out the new song. One is called worship together.com. That's a big thing. under the radar UTR they put out a podcast of stuff that's not maybe got a regular record label. These could be independently are independent. Yeah, independently produced artists. All sons and daughters, I believe, have done well. No, they're part of it. I mean, they do some really nice worship. Yeah, songs. But yeah, I know that they did have a record label. I don't. There are a lot of good groups. That no longer have the record label, okay, they're doing the independent thing. So to find their music can be hard. Okay, but under the radar is a really good resource for that. So you find these things and you just, you know, click on Submit to, yeah, I want to be part of your weekly. Okay.

Steve Elzinga  

So information, just get it in the listen to it.

Marie Elzinga 

Yeah, there will be some of them have free downloads, they just if this is something new, and of course they're promoting whatever they well, under the radar doesn't really promote a particular band. They're just trying to give out the new stuff. Some of the stuff that you can submit to, they're going to promote their own stuff. But yeah, I'm listening all the time, all the time.

Steve Elzinga  

So listen to the Christian radio stations. Talked about the church. Yep. You know, there's other, you know, get to know some of the other worship directors. They're going through some of the same things that you have and they've discovered something and right You can get that from them. Share leads sheets, and Yep. Yeah, 

Marie Elzinga 

yeah, the the one. You had mentioned Kevin before who took over the music program when I was in Canada, which is really helpful. He's in a different country than we are. And different things are promoted there. Then here, so all of a sudden, yeah, we share emails all the time. What are you listening to? Hey, what's on your radar? What's your new favorite, whatever, and we just what are you doing for Christmas, right? Yeah, yeah.

Steve Elzinga  

 All right. Thank you.