THE TRUTH THAT SETS US FREE (BK)
John L. Bell
Biblical songs for worship
Provocative but biblical, singable but not simplistic, eclectic but full of integrity…
- songs which shun dated, churchy language and instead embrace contemporary speech;
- songs which prove that the southern hemisphere has more to offer than ‘Kumbaya’;
- songs which take the world seriously, because God takes it seriously;
- songs which allow worship to be more than predictable praise;
- songs which challenge the dominance of a performance mentality…
The Truth That Sets Us Free is a new collection of longer songs from John L. Bell & the Wild Goose Resource Group, the first such collection for almost a decade. As with previous albums, these are not songs written for an instant market, but songs that have done the rounds, been road-tested at home and abroad, and have proved their worth.
Coming from places as far apart as Singapore, Mozambique and Glasgow, the only common thread is in the title. The ‘truth that sets us free’ – a quotation from St. John’s Gospel is recognised in songs about healing, racism, winter and holy communion as well as in settings of psalms and other biblical texts.
Among rarities, is a tune written by an imprisoned queen set to a text which mirrors the sentiment of her original words. There is a song which sees the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 as an incentive to social justice in a world where many people still live on less than a dollar a day. There are texts which use un-hymnlike words such as ‘economics’ and ’ campaigners’ a four-bar chant from South Africa which people never tire of, and a stunning gathering song from India which has delighted people in at least three of the four continents.
The songs are recorded on a CD of the same name by the Wild Goose Collective, a (vaguely) all-Scottish collective of singers, and musicians.
(2012)
96 pages
ISBN 9781849522304
Mary Nelson Keithahn –
The quality and creativity of both texts and tunes are what we have come to expect from Bell and his Wild Goose Resource Group colleagues. A master at teaching ordinary congregations to sing in four parts, Bell knows how to write and arrange songs to fit his methods. His texts reflect the love this pastor-preacher has for the Bible and his insights into the relevance of scripture in today’s world. – MARY NELSON KEITHAHN, The Hymn, Vol. 65, No.3• Summer 2014