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I cannot ignore these courts. Part of my livelihood depends on them: central to the metaphor is that the court pays the composer to compose. Because they serve the Living God revealed in Jesus Christ, I must listen to what the Holy Spirit may be telling me through them. Because they are human, and thus no less sinful than I, they may tempt me to give them paper hopes, sweet nothings, and a diluted or escapist gospel. Because I want their approval and am wary of their disapproval I may yield to that temptation. As a writer of hymn lyrics, I am also a pastor and a prophet. As pastor I am called to love the worldwide church I am ordained to serve; to be a signpost pointing the church to Jesus Christ, the head of the Church; to listen to people's deepest needs; and to offer opportunities for people to voice the fears, hopes, sorrows, and questions that our frenetic, feel-good culture prefers to ignore. As prophet I am called to announce the good news of God's love in Jesus Christ, who breaks barriers between human beings, loves the whole world, and cares especially for people who are impoverished, marginalized, enslaved, and oppressed. I am called to speak the fullness of God's truth as I hear it, question conventional wisdom, and encourage congregations to voice a faith, commitment, and hope more daring, and more determined, than they might otherwise venture to sing. In practice, the roles of court poet, pastor, and prophet shade into each other like colors on a spectrum. As in a spectrum, however, there are recognizable differences between the colors, even when the boundaries are imprecise. To summarize: my calling as a hymn poet is to serve the church by offering poems of faith for congregations to hear, speak, or sing. Because we are all incomplete Christians, what we want to sing falls short of what God wants us to sing. I therefore live in a tension between service (giving congregations what they ask for) and leadership (offering words to better shape us as Christ's disciples). To illustrate how I work, here are some examples. Court PoetI function as a court poet whenever I accept a commission to write a hymn poem, with or without a fee. Most commissions come from congregations or other church bodies. A few are from individuals. The most common motivations are to celebrate an anniversary year, the installation of a new organ, or the completion of a significant building project. Occasionally the aim is to honor a particular person. (For the record, a commission source either expects me to choose a suitable existing tune, or anticipates commissioning a composer to craft a tune once the text is written.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Contents |
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