I remember the incident as if it occured yesterday, though it’s been over 30 years, because of how profoundly it shaped the rest of my career.  I was leading congregational singing for a Sunday night service at the church where I truly cut my teeth as a worship leader.  I would have been 28 or 29 at the time, old enough to think more highly of myself than I ought, not old enough to have been humbled with any great regularity.  We had a guest pastor that night, a gentleman who, not too long after this incident, became a good friend, someone I admire deeply.  (In fact, when I became the chapel director at Judson University, I invited him to speak frequently.)

His sermon that night was titled “The Brush of Angels’ Wings. . .,” so I knew exactly what I was going to use as the table-setting song.  Though this was a decade before I enrolled in the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, where I learned the concept of Scripture-shaped worship (thank you, F. Russell Mitman), I was already keen to the idea that there should be a sense of flow in worship, and my job as a worship leader was to facilitate as seamless a transition as possible between the congregational singing and the message (and any other elements of the service; I was serving a good, low-church Baptist congregation, so we were two-fold all the way).  Indeed, was there any possible choice other than Lanny Wolfe’s “Surely the Presence of the Lord Is in This Place”? For those born in the past 50 years, Wolfe was kind of a poor man’s Bill Gaither; both had a trio, and both wrote a lot of songs.  To be fair, many of Wolfe’s were pretty good; I liked (and still like) his jazzy chords in “Surely.”  Would that today’s cwm writers branched into some of Wolfe’s harmonic territory.  (See the previous blog post.)

I can’t remember what other songs we sang that night, but when we came to “Surely,” and we got to the line that says, “I can hear the brush of angels’ wings, I see glory on each face,” I smiled inwardly.  I had nailed it.  “Isn’t our guest preacher going to appreciate how well I’ve paved the way for his message?” I mused to myself.  Finishing up the last chorus (which had been preceded by a nice modulation from C to D-flat, I might add), singing the title line one final time, I closed in prayer, thanking God for His omnipresence in our lives, and made my way back to the soundboard, where I was recording the message for posterity.  “Job well done,” I thought.

My contentment didn’t last long.  Our guest began by listing several books that had recently been released, all of them touting New Age weirdness under the guise of Christian spirituality.  These were not Christian mystics, embracing elements of historical and Orthodox Christian faith that, for however other-worldly the experiences, nevertheless pointed at all times to Christ.  This was nutty stuff, and a segment of American Christianity at that time was buying it hook, line, and sinker.  The preacher, rightly, exhorted Christians to eschew such fluff and banish it from our daily lives . . . every element . . . even, especially, our worship services . . . even, especially, our congregational singing.  “And forgive me,” he said, “but I must say this because it illustrates the point.  The song we just sang a minute ago. . . .”

I don’t remember much after that.  I do recall slinking down behind the sound console as best I could, a rather forlorn hope for a guy my size.  And I do recall, English major (two degrees) that I am, checking out the bulletin and seeing what I had obviously missed when I was doing my pre-service research: the question mark at the end.  The sermon was actually titled “The Brush of Angels’ Wings. . .?”  I had set the table for the speaker, all right, but with a negative example to prove his point.  

What’s the big deal?  Two things, both related to the spiritually formative importance of the lyrics we sing in worship.  There is mention of hearing the brush of the wings of living creatures in Scripture (Ezekiel 3:1-15), but it’s not a soothing sound.  Far from it; there’s unsettling loud rumbling, and when the Spirit lifts Ezekiel away from this scene, he “went in bitterness” and anger–not the warm-fuzzy imagery Wolfe concocts for his song.  Moreover, the title line alludes to Jacob’s encounter with the wrestling angel in Genesis 28 and Jacob’s pronouncement upon waking from his dream.  But notice the tag: “Surely the Lord is in this place–and I didn’t know it!” (emphasis mine).  Jacob sensed God’s presence only after the fact; he didn’t celebrate God’s being with him based on in-the-moment sensations.  Jacob was walking by faith, not sight here; Wolfe’s lyrics celebrate sights that inspire faith.  It’s a subtle but important difference, particulary where corporate worship is concerned, in a world that often clamors for the miraculous as a precursor (or, at best/worst, corequisite) to belief (Matt. 12:39).  (I owe the second of these revelations to Brian Wren and his marvelous Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song.)  

Worship leaders, we have the sacred privilege of selecting the words our congregations will sing in praise to Almighty Triune God.  Choose wisely.

The Lord be with you!