winter weather update

Church family, our hearts are with you. We know many are still navigating the effects of the winter weather—especially those without power or heat. Please know you are deeply loved, prayed for, and not alone. We’re grateful that power has been restored to the church, and we look forward to gathering for worship this Sunday at 10:40 a.m. There will be no Sunday School this week, but we invite you to come a little early and warm up with us at 9:45 a.m. for coffee, hot chocolate, donuts, and shared fellowship. If you’re able to join us, please use caution in the parking lot, as some slick spots may remain. And if you need to stay home, know we understand and are holding you in prayer.

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Singing Sinners

Stephens Valley Church singing

Zach Young, Director of Music Ministries

If you were raised in an ecclesiastical tradition different from ours here at SVC, you might remember the “altar call,” accompanied by the “invitation hymn.” A product of 19th century revivalism, the altar call was exported from frontier camp meetings and urban evangelistic crusades into the worship services of many churches. Sadly, history and statistics have not vindicated this practice as beneficial to the evangelical church. For nearly two millennia, the Christian response to the preached Word was to feast at the Table. Communion is the central event of Christian worship, and when the altar call supplanted it, the emphasis of worship services subtly drifted away from the supremacy of Christ to the preeminence of the individual. Church leaders then replaced the ordinary means of grace with methods designed to attract seekers (who do not actually exist, per Romans 3:11). 



A true understanding of salvation negates any personal effort to save ourselves. The work is fully accomplished by God through no merit of our own. However, we must be cautious about drifting into complacency and even antinomianism (rejecting God’s law), thereby cheapening His grace and breaking our fellowship with Him by tolerating and cultivating abiding sin in our hearts. Lent can be particularly helpful in calling us to repent, fast, and return to our first love, and the “invitation hymn” can prompt us to clearly view our sin and humbly bow the knee to receive forgiveness (1 John 1:9).  



Rather than using these hymns to conjure an emotional response in corporate worship, I believe some are useful for private or family devotions, seasons of corporate and personal repentance and fasting (like Lent), and can give us words to pray when confessing our sins. Consider these lines from some well-known invitation hymns: 




“All to Jesus I surrender, humbly at His feet I bow, 

Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me, Jesus, take me now.” 

“Oh! for the wonderful love He has promised, promised for you and for me; 

Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon, pardon for you and for me. 
Come home, ye who are weary, come home.” 



“Let me at Thy throne of mercy find a sweet relief, 

Heal my wounded, broken spirit; help my unbelief.”



“Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind; 

Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 

Yea, all I need in Thee to find, 

O Lamb of God, I come!” 



“The world behind me, the cross before me; 

No turning back, no turning back.” 



“Out of my shameful failure and loss,  

Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come; 

Into the glorious gain of Thy cross, 

Jesus, I come to Thee. 

Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,

Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm, 

Out of distress to jubilant psalm, 

Jesus, I come to Thee.” 



“Come every soul by sin oppressed, there’s mercy with the Lord, 
And He will surely give you rest by trusting in His word.” 



As we continue through the next several weeks of Lent, I hope these and other similar hymns can help us think rightly about the impoverishment of our souls and riches of God’s grace in Christ Jesus.  

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