New songs for modern missional worship, rich in Christian teaching and contextualized in modern culture. Contemporary hymns, psalms, songs of lament and praise written by members of the Louisville, KY-based Sojourn Community.
The fourth of July is the national holiday known as Independence Day here in the United States, where we celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.
Relevant magazine’s website has a good article about the Christian meaning of “independence” — in fact, it’s good enough that I’ve decided to cancel the one I’d been thinking of writing and direct you all (or as we say in certain parts of the independent United States, “ya’ll”) over to the Relevant article.
This weekend we’ll have a feature on Sojourn worship leader and songwriter Charlie Richardson (“There is a Peace”) that will include video and audio links to his music and the text of a short interview I conducted with him that shows the heart of a true worship leader. But for now as we celebrate Independence Day, here is the classic Revolutionary War poem “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
Sung at the completion of the Concord Battle Monument,
April 19, 1837
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world,
The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires our sons are gone.
Spirit! who made those freemen dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and Thee.