The Christian Musician: Heroes to Look Up To

   The people who should be highest on a Christian musician's list of heroes . . . are not the great composers.

   Don't get me wrong. I like to play Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms in the background while working or driving. And I also like to play them and other composers in the foreground at my own piano. I'm excited to teach students about these men who were geniuses in the music world.

   I'll probably talk more about the great composers' spiritual lives (believe me, they all had one! Just not always the right kind) a different time. Today my goal is to look at one of the many people who can serve as a role model today: Isaac Watts.


   He wasn't actually a musician. He was an all-around writer. Besides the expected theological works, he also wrote "discussions of psychology . . . textbooks on logic, and a variety of other works" (101 Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck, pg.112). But today we know him best for the hymns he wrote that are still in popular use today! These include "I Sing the Mighty Power of God," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "Joy to the World!" and many others. I should specify, he wrote the lyrics. Others wrote the tunes. Maybe one of these days I'll have the time to delve into the world of those who wrote the actual music for the hymns we sing and talk about that a bit.

   Isaac Watts was not tall or good-looking, and he did not enjoy good health. That serves to remind us all of an important fact: God doesn't use us based on our physical qualities. Thank Him for that!

   I really like his mission statement. It's one we all could stand to live by in our own fields: "My design was not to exalt myself to the rank and glory of poets, but I was ambitious to be a servant to the churches, and a helper to the joy of the meanest [meaning low-ranking or poorest] Christian" (ibid., pg. 112). How many of us could claim that as our ambition? Somewhere I heard that, as a young man, Isaac Watts complained to his father about the quality of music used in church at the time. His father challenged him to do something about it. So he did.

   Let us, as musicians, embrace Watt's purpose as ours: to serve God and His church, and to give joy to all around us.

   Taken from 101 Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications. Copyright renewed 2012.

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