On walking into church in the middle of your own hymn

A few months ago, my hymn In Love Christ Shed His Tears was published in the Winter 2014 issue of Lutheran Forum. Now it is Lent, and the music director at the church I am a member at, Holy Cross (LCMS), decided to make the hymn the theme hymn for Lent. It was used on Ash Wednesday and again this morning, so I'm interested in seeing just how many services it is going to show up in throughout Lent as the theme hymn. This is very exciting for me, but there has been a humorous aspect to it as well.

As I said before, Ash Wednesday was the first time it was used at both a Noon service and a 6:30pm service. What was funny is I wasn't able to attend either service because I was working. I was playing for a voice lesson at Noon (I couldn't cancel because we are preparing for a rapidly approaching recital), and I was prepping to play organ for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Grabill at their 7:00pm service to miss the second one.

I did finally get to be present when it was sung this morning, but even that didn't go as expected. I nearly always play organ for Prince of Peace's 9:00am Sunday service before driving over and attending Holy Cross' late service at 10:30am. Depending on the week, I am usually running late getting to Holy Cross, and this was the case this morning. I didn't know that my hymn was being used in the service, but I got to laugh as I arrived just as the hymn was beginning and snuck to a seat to sing the last half of the hymn in the congregation. It was amazing to hear the singing as I was going to sit down! I've obviously sang the hymn lots of times myself, but it was great hearing it sung without me singing, and it was great being able to sing it in a situation where I was contributing to the corporate voice of the congregation.

I'd have loved to be present at each service so far (and I probably would have been pointed out and received attention if I had been there on Ash Wednesday), but it is still good the way it has worked out. I've said in a previous post that if my hymns are purely my own words they are no good, but if they are the Church's word I might have written something worthwhile. Well, so far, the use of my hymn has belonged to the congregation. I'm still looking forward to the day I'll be able to be there on time enough to sing the whole hymn in the congregation, but it's the "in the congregation" part I'm again looking forward to.