Another Sunday school favorite, I Love to Tell the Story. I can still see Mrs. Raleigh seated at the piano (she was also the superintendent), still hear her playing this, and us kids singing it, soon to go on to the secondary Sunday school department (no more sandbox!)…
I like the way Alan Jackson sings it, rich and mellow, making it ring true.
From 1868, by Horatio Palmer, comes this classic hymn, Yield Not to Temptation–sung by the Johnson children, Jeffreay, Kayla, Ryan, and Jennifer.
If you never catch yourself humming or whistling this hymn, you never went to Sunday school.
O Safe to the Rock, by William O. Cushing, was written in 1876. Here we have it for you a la Sunday school: just the printed lyrics and the lady playing the piano. You can sing along.
A reminder: anyone who wants a hymn posted here, just say so. The hymn shop is always open.
Every word is clear, every note is pure, in Alan Jackson’s rendition of this well-loved old hymn, I Love to Tell the Story. Brings back fond memories of Sunday school. But the best thing about these old hymns is that they aren’t just memories–they’re still here today. Even as God is always here.
Here we are, back in Sunday school again. This one, He Leadeth Me, was in the hymnal that they gave us when they reckoned we weren’t just a lot of little kids anymore, and wanted to prepare us to go to church with the adults. I can still hear Mrs. Raleigh playing this on the piano while we sixth-graders, feeling very grown-up with our grown-up hymnals, sang.
All we’ve got here is the piano, plus readable lyrics–just like we had in Sunday school. This is Jesus Calls Us, first published in 1852: and you might want to sing it yourself.
Pressed for time this morning, I couldn’t find quite what I wanted in the form of this wonderful old Fanny Crosby hymn, Draw Me Nearer. But this plain little piano rendition is pretty close to what we sang to, in Sunday school.
I have no idea why so many artists perform this hymn as if it were a dirge. This is one you whistle as you walk down the street! And God will hear it.
Ah, this hymn brings me back! Jesus Calls Us, from 1852. Note they’re giving you nothing but the lyrics and a piano–just exactly like we got in Sunday school. So you’ll have to sing it yourself! Go ahead–try to do it without tearing up. Betcha can’t! But God blesses those tears.
Would you believe it? There are people who get all bent out of shape over this good old Sunday school hymn as being “too violent.” As secular humanists, they are probably incapable of understanding an extended figure of speech, so they interpret the lyrics as a Christian call for jihad–but of course when Muslims call for real jihad, and start pitching certain persons off the roofs of skyscrapers, somehow that never arouses the liberals’ outrage–or their compassion.
Anyway, let’s start the day with Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus…
Children singing Trust and Obey–it brings me back to Sunday school.
What did Jesus mean when He said that unless we become as little children, we will not be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
Something to think about…