In Christ Alone

And together they wrote a song that in some ways catalyzed this movement and raised the standard of what a modern song of worship could be, namely a modern hymn.

And this hymn slash song of worship is none other than In Christ Alone, written by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty.

And here's Keith back in 2008 on Haven Today, back then describing what he was seeking to do in his hymn writing.

I guess what we really wanted to do with writing modern hymns was two things.

That was a much younger Keith Getty back in 2008 when Charles Morris and I, back then I was in another role at Haven, but together we met Keith and his wife Kristen for the first time.

At that point, I was not on the air and the Gettys also were not widely known.

In Christ Alone was functionally their debut album.

And I so clearly remember sitting in the sound booth that day as Charles was in the studio recording a program, an interview with them.

But tomorrow we'll be going to what I personally see as the hymn that the Lord used like a catalyst to launch what many now call the modern hymn writing movement.

I'm talking about In Christ Alone, written by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty.

It's a hymn which, unlike many of the older hymns, the lyrics and music were actually written at the same time.

That's a nuance we don't often think about.

Often the lyrics of hymns and the melodies, which today feel inseparable, they were not originally paired together.

But this is a different time in history.

The way music is written and shared is different, but the value of a hymn like In Christ Alone is still indisputable.

It's a hymn much treasured, rightly so, and we'll tell that story tomorrow and close out this series with a crescendo.

It's about 20, 25 years old.

It's a modern day hymn in Christ alone.

I love it.

It's one of my favorites.

Which I think – and this is just my opinion, and I know that I may be strongly opinionated about some of this, but it is one of those things where I just – I don't think I'm wrong on it.

I think two of these songs are going to be sung for a century or more, but Christ Our Hope in Life and Death and then In Christ Alone.

And they had the entire – Cast come out that had been the guest artists throughout the evening, including Hillary Scott, who joined on the last song, who was the lead singer for the country rock group called Lady A.

And she came out and led the first verse of In Christ Alone as a sister in Christ, which was encouraging.

The whole night was just fantastic.

filled with encouragement and it got started with Sinclair Ferguson talking about what the, what the scripture says in its totality about singing.

The Christian faith truly does speak to all of life in ways that none other does.

No other religious belief system does.

tough one.

You know, I like In Christ Alone.

I think that's a good song.

That's, you know, was it Getty's? You know, I think they're the ones that sung that song.

And so we have a ton of meetings, and part of our job, because of how Point Loma runs their worship services, they have a pool of worship music, some churches do that too, and so rather than kind of picking out of thin air, we pick from a pool.

And the worship arts interns are the ones who, who vote and decide on songs that enter this pool, we discuss songs, all kinds of those things.

And I found a lot of songs that had lyric changes that were not just subtle, little, you know, we just want to change this one word and it doesn't really do anything, but really changed the meaning, the theological implication of the song.

And so an example of that was In Christ Alone, and they changed the wrath of God was satisfied to the love of God was magnified.

And it seems like not a big deal, but when I discussed, I brought it up, I said, "Hey, why aren't, why did we take this one out?" You know, especially 'cause I think it came up, that change had already happened before I arrived as an intern, but it, the song got brought back up because there was another song that we were vetting and deciding to vote on that also mentioned wrath, and I, I, I think it was by the Citizens, it mentions that we were once children of wrath.