Songs That Shaped Me: "By Our Love"

If you grew up in church, you might not remember the sermons you've heard through the years, but you sure remember the music.  Thisis because the message comes through meter and rhyme, rhythm and repetition.  And it's likely that you hear each sermon only once, but you'll hear the same church music for years.  Because of this, the songs we sing in church tend to sharpe us as much as, if not more than, the Sunday school lessons or sermons that are preached.  This is why I've always tried to make sure that the songs we sang in the churches I served, reflected good theology.  

Unfortunately, many Christian songs have some poor messages that we keep repeating each time we sing them in church.  I've butted heads with some good music directors in churches, over their insinstence upon singing bad songs just because "the people love them."  I've tried to explain that the songs we sing shape our outlook on life--for good or for evil.  And even the songs we sing in church can have a bad effect on us, so "be careful, little ears, what you hear."

I've decided to take a few blog posts to talk about the songs that shaped me--some for the better, and some for the worse.  Some you might know, and others you may not recognize.  They are defintely all throwbacks.  The first is an idealized vision of what the Church is supposed to be--and for this reason, it may have made me somewhat of an idealist in my own view of the Church.  They'll Know We are Christians was written in the 1960s, so you know that when I heard it in the 1970s and 1980s, it was still considered new, by church standards.  I'll share with you a more updated version, "By Our Love," by For King and Country:



These lyrics, by Fr. Peter Scholtes, communicate the ethos of what the early church intended--unity and love.  In fact, they quote John 13:35, which says that love should be the distinguishing characteristic of believers.  The world will know that we are disciples of Jesus by the love we share.    No, it's not the crosses around our necks or the Bibles that we carry.  It's not the steeples on our churches or the multi-million-dollar TV shows.  The world will know we are Christians by our love.  Sound idealistic?  Jesus didn't think so.  And it's this simple, idealistic, message that shaped the way I saw the church as a child.

Perhaps this is something the Church needs to regain--unity in the Spirit.  We need to remember that unity does not equal conformity.  It doesn't even mean agreement.  Look, we are never going to agree on everything--maybe especially not on the hot button issues.  But when we can learn to live in unity despite our differences, they'll know we are Christians by our love.  Not by our insistence that we have the right interpretation of scripture,  not by our adherence to the strictest of moral laws, and not by the way we worship.  When we live in unity with one another, and embracing the world Jesus died for, they'll know we are Christians by our love.