The four hymns on that October Sunday evening weren’t bad.
Good, in fact, which these days means above average. Not for the first time I was a visitor to the chapel. We led off with ‘In heavenly love abiding’; then came ‘Through all the changing scenes of life’; before the sermon, ‘Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side’; and to conclude, ‘When peace like a river’. Nothing remarkable there — so what about these choices?
Everybody knew them. In most evangelical churches in the past 100 years everybody would have known them; until recently. They were clearly chosen to connect with the Scripture reading and sermon theme, the stilling of the storm in Mark 4. Four reminders: ‘The storm may roar without me’; ‘When in distress to him I called, he to my rescue came…’; ‘Be still my soul; the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below’; and, of course, ‘When sorrows like sea billows roll’.
