Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Robert J. Morgan on the Power of Hymns, Memory, and Worship That Lasts

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Robert J. Morgan on the Power of Hymns, Memory, and Worship That Lasts · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio. Pastor Morgan, thanks for joining me. It's my pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Pastor Robert Jay Morgan, all through of the
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  Speaker 1: new book The Origin of Hymns, which is featured in
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  Speaker 1: the new movie I Can Only Imagine Two at Spotlights
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  Speaker 1: fifty beloved hymns and has so much more and it
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  Speaker 1: as well. We'll talk about that in a second here,
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  Speaker 1: of course. Pastor Robert D. Morgan is also known for
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  Speaker 1: other books including The Red Sea Rules, Then Sings My
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  Speaker 1: Soul and One Hunter, Bible Versus That Changed the World,
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  Speaker 1: and other books as well. Pastor Morgan, there's a great
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  Speaker 1: story behind this book. It's featured in the movie I
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  Speaker 1: Can Only Imagine Two, But you did not write it
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  Speaker 1: until after the movie was shot, I believe. Tell me
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  Speaker 1: about that and how you even got involved in writing
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  Speaker 1: this book.
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  Speaker 2: So when I Can Only Imagine Two was being filmed
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  Speaker 2: here in Nashville and the soundstage, somebody called and asked
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  Speaker 2: if I would come and have prayer over the casts
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  Speaker 2: and crew one morning before shooting, and so I did,
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  Speaker 2: and I met Joshua Wall who is the producer of
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  Speaker 2: the movie, and he's a fan of my books. He
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  Speaker 2: had read all of my books about the him. So
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  Speaker 2: we had a long talk and he told me that
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  Speaker 2: all the way through the movie, the main character, him Timmins,
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  Speaker 2: is reading a book very similar to what I've written
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  Speaker 2: in the past, called The Origin of Hymns, and we
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  Speaker 2: talked about how much we love the hymns as well
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  Speaker 2: as the near music. So then after the movie was
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  Speaker 2: in the can I was in Germany and Joshua call me.
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  Speaker 2: He said, why didn't I think of this before? But
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  Speaker 2: we need to have the actual book Origin of the
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  Speaker 2: Hymns available after the movie. So I said, well, we
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  Speaker 2: can do that, so we worked real fast. My publisher
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Nelson help, so we have this book now that
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  Speaker 2: is actually featured and the I can only imagine two,
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  Speaker 2: which will be out soon. It's a wonderful movie. I've
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  Speaker 2: seen the pre screening of it, and people will love
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  Speaker 2: the movie, but I think they'll also love this book
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  Speaker 2: that inspired the story behind the movie.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And by the way, this has been now before.
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  Speaker 1: I believe the Kendrick Brothers a film The Fireproof two
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  Speaker 1: decades ago or maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, and
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  Speaker 1: then there's a book in that called The Love There
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  Speaker 1: and I think they wrote that book maybe during or
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  Speaker 1: after the movie? How did you choose which fifty hymns
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  Speaker 1: are in this book? And also what other material is
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  Speaker 1: in this book, because it's more than just about one
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  Speaker 1: m Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: The key hymn in the movie is it as well
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  Speaker 2: with my Soul? So I told that story, and then
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  Speaker 2: we found forty nine other hymns that are beloved, hymns.
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  Speaker 3: That are well known.
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  Speaker 2: You know, not everybody is singing hymns anymore in their churches,
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  Speaker 2: and I like to near music, but I don't like
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  Speaker 2: us to lose the hymns. I'm a champion for churches
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  Speaker 2: singing both and the older music. We can do that.
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  Speaker 2: We've always done it. The church has always done that.
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  Speaker 2: And so I pick fifty hymns that should endure and
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  Speaker 2: that people ought to be singing today. And so they
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  Speaker 2: are well known hymns like Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine
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  Speaker 2: and Oh for a thousand Times to sing, and Isaac
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  Speaker 2: Watt's great hymn, Oh God Our Help in Asia's past.
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  Speaker 2: So hymns that are rich and theology, that have been
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  Speaker 2: a blessing to millions of people through the decades and
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  Speaker 2: the centuries. Even those were the hymns that I tried
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  Speaker 2: to select till we have the first one hundred pages
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  Speaker 2: of the book are the words of music on one
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  Speaker 2: side and the story behind the Him on the other
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  Speaker 2: side of these fifty hymns, and then after that we
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  Speaker 2: have I think some other great material for.
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  Speaker 1: Those who don't know. I could only imagine who tells
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  Speaker 1: the story behind a song? By Mercy Me. I believe
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  Speaker 1: it's called even if, and even if includes part of
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  Speaker 1: the hymn it is well with my soul. I believe
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  Speaker 1: Tim Timmins co wrote that Tim Timmans is a prominent
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  Speaker 1: part of this movie. By the way, I've seen the
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  Speaker 1: movie as well. It's phenomenal, maybe as good or better
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  Speaker 1: than the first one. How would you define a hymn?
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  Speaker 1: And I'm asking that because we talk a lot about
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  Speaker 1: hymns and modern music and praise music and worship music
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  Speaker 1: and all these songs are all these terms get tossed around.
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  Speaker 1: They're often not defined. Do you have a definition for.
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  Speaker 3: What him is? Well?
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  Speaker 2: Him is actually versified theology. It is a small bit
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  Speaker 2: of Bible study that is put in verse form and
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  Speaker 2: can be sung. It is singable theology. Really, Now, a
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  Speaker 2: lot of songs may take some particular truth and repeat
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  Speaker 2: that truth over and over and over again with a
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  Speaker 2: lot of repetitious lines, and maybe there's only one or
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  Speaker 2: two points that him tries to make. But a really
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  Speaker 2: classic hymn will not do a lot of repeating. It
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  Speaker 2: will have great theology woven from the Bible with an
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  Speaker 2: appropriate song like Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, God Almighty. Early
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  Speaker 2: in the morning, our song shall rise to thee. And
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  Speaker 2: the best hymns are theocentric. They center more on God
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  Speaker 2: than on us. A lot of modern songs are more
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  Speaker 2: about us than they are about God. And a great
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  Speaker 2: hymn is a structured bit of song that comes right
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  Speaker 2: out of the Bible, or right out of the theology
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  Speaker 2: that is woven out of the text of the Bible,
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  Speaker 2: and it's adapted for singing.
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  Speaker 3: And often there's a progression through the hymn of truth.
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  Speaker 2: So again in the Holy, Holy, Holy, there's a line
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  Speaker 2: in the third stands that says, only thou art holy,
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  Speaker 2: and it takes the message a little bit further. So
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  Speaker 2: a hymn is a structured bit of theology that we
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  Speaker 2: sing for the uplifting of our soul and.
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  Speaker 3: For the glory of God.
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  Speaker 1: What does the church lose by not singing hymns, and
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  Speaker 1: what is it gained by singing hymns? And I guess
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  Speaker 1: within that question is I'm asking about hymns from long ago,
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  Speaker 1: because it does seem to me that we lose something
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  Speaker 1: and again something by singing those.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Michael, the biggest thing we lose is longevity.
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  Speaker 2: Today I was listening to my playlist and I had
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  Speaker 2: Shout to the Lord as one of them, and I
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  Speaker 2: can't remember the last time that we sang that song
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  Speaker 2: in church. Although it was very popular and it's time,
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  Speaker 2: it lasted longer than most modern songs do. But the
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  Speaker 2: songs that we are singing, if you went to a
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  Speaker 2: church that has a contemporary song in the order of
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  Speaker 2: service and you're saying it, you're probably not going to
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  Speaker 2: be singing it a year from them. The shelf life
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  Speaker 2: of today's popular songs is very short, and the result
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  Speaker 2: of that is since they don't last very long, it's almost.
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  Speaker 3: Like disposable worship music.
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  Speaker 2: They don't become embedded in our minds over a long
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  Speaker 2: period of time.
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  Speaker 3: When you have a hymn like again.
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  Speaker 2: Holy, Holy, Holy, or it is Well with my soul,
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  Speaker 2: or how great Thou art, and you sing it when
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  Speaker 2: you're ten years old and when you're twenty, and it
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  Speaker 2: still shows up in the rotation of hymns when you're
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  Speaker 2: thirty or forty, and when you're fifteen and sixty. Over
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  Speaker 2: the course of a lifetime, singing the same songs the
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  Speaker 2: way that the Israelite sang the one hundred and fifty songs,
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  Speaker 2: they become embedded in our memories. They go very deeply
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  Speaker 2: down into our souls, and that's tremendously important as we
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  Speaker 2: get older, and especially if we battle illnesses and diseases
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  Speaker 2: or mental illness. It's that deeply embedded lyrics of our
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  Speaker 2: hymns that sometimes stays with us longer than anything else.
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  Speaker 2: So by dispensing with the hymns, or not only dispensing
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  Speaker 2: with some rich theological truths that have come out of
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  Speaker 2: great sermons and Bible studies from lyricists, but we're also
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  Speaker 2: losing the longevity that we need to get songs, the
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  Speaker 2: songs of the Word deeply into our hearts and minds.
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  Speaker 1: They also when we don't sing them. We also felt
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  Speaker 1: a tire faith to the past. I think you know
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  Speaker 1: one of the songs in the hymn book that I
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  Speaker 1: used to sing a lot was written by Martin Luther,
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  Speaker 1: and to sing a song by a saint of the faith,
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  Speaker 1: since that was written centuries ago, says something about your faith.
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  Speaker 1: I think that your faiths has a Christianity as to
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  Speaker 1: the test of time. You know, we know it's two
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  Speaker 1: thousand years old, but I think to sing songs that
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  Speaker 1: were written by people between now and that two thousand
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  Speaker 1: year period, and you know it's there's something to it
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  Speaker 1: to strengthen your faith. I don't know if you agree
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  Speaker 1: with me on that or not.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely do.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, in the book The Origin of Hymns, I've
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  Speaker 2: got a sachem on the history of Him the Day,
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  Speaker 2: and I talked about how the earliest hymn ever written
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  Speaker 2: that we have still on record is Exodus fifteen, and
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  Speaker 2: the Israelites sang their song after they got through the
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  Speaker 2: Red Sea. And so we have the era of biblical
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  Speaker 2: hymns that goes all the way through through the Book
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  Speaker 2: of Revelation, and then there's the Greek hymns, and then
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  Speaker 2: after that there's a pit of Latin hymnity, and after
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  Speaker 2: that we move into the German the great German hymns
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  Speaker 2: like the one you're referring to a mighty fortresses are God, perhaps, yes,
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  Speaker 2: And my favorite German him is Praisey the Lord, the Almighty,
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  Speaker 2: the King of Creation. And then we have the era
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  Speaker 2: of the great English hymns, such as All Held the
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  Speaker 2: Power of Jesus' Name and some of these wonderful hymns
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  Speaker 2: that we're still singing today in churches that appreciate hymns.
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  Speaker 2: And then in the eighteen hundreds came the era of
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  Speaker 2: the Gospel songs with D. L. Moody and Fanny Crosby,
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  Speaker 2: and they're a little bit lighter and maybe more emotional
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  Speaker 2: in some ways. Blessed assurance and to God.
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  Speaker 3: Be the Glory. And then you know.
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  Speaker 2: That leads us up to the praise and worship music
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  Speaker 2: today that came out of the Jesus Movement, the Jesus Revolution.
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  Speaker 2: So to understand the whole sweep of the history of
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  Speaker 2: hymnity is to understand the history of Christianity. And when
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  Speaker 2: we sing the hymns, we are adding our voices to
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  Speaker 2: the great chorus of the generations that are praising the
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  Speaker 2: Lord even now around the throne.
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  Speaker 3: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: You know you're talking about the richness of the hymns
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  Speaker 1: there's a richness to the story behind the ms. That's
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  Speaker 1: what this book is about, and that's what the books
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  Speaker 1: you've written in the past is about. I like to
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  Speaker 1: we don't have hindles anymore in the pews. Most churches don't,
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  Speaker 1: or many churches don't. I don't know what the stats
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  Speaker 1: are there, but him knows. You could look at the author,
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  Speaker 1: see often the author's birth and date, and then we
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  Speaker 1: didn't have phones back then, but I was doing that.
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  Speaker 1: But you could go then and research who that was
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  Speaker 1: and who that was and why they wrote that. And yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we're losing something when we don't do that. I completely agree.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, how did you get interested in hymns?
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  Speaker 1: You've written so much about it. Did you have an
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  Speaker 1: interest in this growing up or did you develop that
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  Speaker 1: interest it developed.
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  Speaker 2: I went to a church that sang hymns and gospel songs,
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  Speaker 2: and I always enjoyed that. I'm not a vocalist or
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  Speaker 2: a musician, but I love the lyrics, and I love listening,
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  Speaker 2: and I love congregationally singing. I don't it's got to
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  Speaker 2: be a lot of other people around me before I
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  Speaker 2: lift my voice too high. But when I was in college,
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  Speaker 2: also we had some of the great hymns in chapel
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  Speaker 2: that I'd never heard before, and I just really dedicated
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  Speaker 2: my life to the Lord. I was very tender in
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  Speaker 2: my heart, and those hymns just lifted me right up
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  Speaker 2: to heaven. And then somebody gave me a book that
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  Speaker 2: was written in the years and years and years ago
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  Speaker 2: called I forget the name of the title. That it
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  Speaker 2: was about some of the writers of the hymns, and
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  Speaker 2: I told about Isaac Watson, Charles Wesley, and Fanny Crosby,
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  Speaker 2: and I found that fascinating, and so I began just
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  Speaker 2: doing more and more research, and Thomas Nelson asked me
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  Speaker 2: about twenty five years ago to rod a book called
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  Speaker 2: Then Sings My Soul, telling the story of some of
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  Speaker 2: these hymns. So we've put out three volumes of that.
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  Speaker 2: But this is this Origin of the Hymns, is a
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  Speaker 2: very user friendly book. It isn't too big, It's about
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  Speaker 2: two hundred pages, it's a self cover, and it just
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  Speaker 2: has a wide variety of information that I think people
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  Speaker 2: will find interesting about the hymns, as well as a
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  Speaker 2: chapter on how to develop a daily hymn habit. Because
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  Speaker 2: every morning and my devotions you talked about hymn books.
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  Speaker 2: I have a hymn book on my desk beside my Bible,
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  Speaker 2: and so finding the next stays him, and that hymn
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  Speaker 2: book is part of my regular devotional routine.
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  Speaker 1: It's an easy way to learn about church history. We're
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  Speaker 1: so you know that the today's church doesn't know a
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  Speaker 1: lot about church history. This is an easy way to
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  Speaker 1: learn about church history and just get it in a
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  Speaker 1: bite size. You are also a sociate pastor of World
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  Speaker 1: Outreach Church in Werphisporo, Tennessee. How did you develop this
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  Speaker 1: ability to write and author? Not not every pastor writes
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  Speaker 1: as much as you do. When did you start writing books?
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  Speaker 2: It was in my thirties and forties. I tapped out
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  Speaker 2: my sermons all my life. My mother was a typing
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  Speaker 2: teacher in high school, and I took typing from her,
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  Speaker 2: and so I was a pretty good typist. And when
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  Speaker 2: I began going into the ministry, I just tapped out
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  Speaker 2: my sermon manuscripts.
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  Speaker 3: And after a few years.
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  Speaker 2: I began, you know, I'd preach a sermon and followed away,
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  Speaker 2: and I thought, I've done all this work. There must
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  Speaker 2: be a way of We didn't know the word repurposing
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  Speaker 2: back then, but that's what it was. So I began
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  Speaker 2: crafting them into magazine articles. And this was in the
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  Speaker 2: day when there were a lot of Christian magazines, and
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  Speaker 2: so I really developed my writing resume, writing for just
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  Speaker 2: about every Christian magazine there was. They would back then
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  Speaker 2: you would send in an article with a stamp, self
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  Speaker 2: addressed envelope, and you'd get a letter back a month later,
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  Speaker 2: maybe a rejection letter or maybe a check for twenty
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  Speaker 2: five dollars and they say, we're going to use this.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's the way that I began. And because
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  Speaker 2: I live in Nashville, you know, Thomas Nelson, my publisher,
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  Speaker 2: is located in my part of town. Actually, so some
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  Speaker 2: of the people knew me and they just developed. And
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  Speaker 2: so for the last twenty five or thirty years, I've
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  Speaker 2: just been on this writing bange.
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  Speaker 3: But I love it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm thankful to God for the opportunity, and I just
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  Speaker 2: hope and pray that it's helpful to people. Writers are
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  Speaker 2: no good without readers, So I appreciate my readers very much.
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  Speaker 1: Give us a preview of any scene you're working on
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  Speaker 1: for the future.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking about we have people on our speed
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  Speaker 2: dial on our phones. I think we need some Bible
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  Speaker 2: versus on speed dial in our minds. We don't always
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  Speaker 2: have time to sit down and look for just the
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  Speaker 2: promise we need at any given time. But if there
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  Speaker 2: are some passages. I've got passages that I've committed to
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  Speaker 2: memory over the years that when I lay down to rest,
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  Speaker 2: those passages, I began quoting them to myself. I've kept
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  Speaker 2: them in a little notebook, or when I'm on an airplane.
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  Speaker 2: You know, on an airplane, sometimes your eyes just get
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  Speaker 2: really tired, but you don't feel like you can go
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  Speaker 2: to sleep, so you just lean back and close your eyes.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not much for watching movies, but what I do
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  Speaker 2: is just let those scriptures and the words of the
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  Speaker 2: great hymns circulate through my mind like water through a fountain,
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  Speaker 2: and it's the best mental therapy for me. It keeps
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  Speaker 2: me happy. And I want to show people how to
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  Speaker 2: do that and encourage them to have the same sort
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  Speaker 2: of habits. So I'm thinking about some projects like that.
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  Speaker 2: I've also studied the fourteen homes that Jesus visited in
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  Speaker 2: the New Testament. It's interesting what happened when he came
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  Speaker 2: into a home to visit it so so, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: We'll stay tuned and we'll see, but for now we're
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  Speaker 2: just really focusing on the origin of hymns about that book.
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  Speaker 1: Astor Robert J. Morgan has been our guest. Pastor Morgan,
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  Speaker 1: thanks so much.
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  Speaker 3: You're welcome, Michael, Thank you very much.
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  Speaker 4: If you enjoy today's interview, please make sure to subscribe
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: and share the episode with a friend. A big thanks
• 16:15
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• 16:17
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• 16:21
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  Speaker 1: See you next time.