He saw the need to begin singing substantive songs – songs rich in scriptural allusion and doctrinal truth – that would help bridge this gap.  The worship lexicon of these students was anemic.  They did not have a good means of connecting the Bible with their own personal experience.  The old hymns of the faith provided this bridge.

Kevin Twit went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston to study recording engineering.  After graduation, he took a job at the university’s recording studio and was also leading a student bible study.  His job gave him the opportunity to interface with students and talk about the gospel, and also gave him the flexibility to read all of the old books for which he had developed an affection.  He says, “I was discipled by old books without much guidance besides God [fortunately] leading me to good [ones].”  It was during this time in his life he began to feel a call to ministry and a desire to attend seminary.

In 1995, he attended a sonship conference, Jack Miller’s last. They sang Arise, My Soul, Arise during the first day of the conference. To him, it seemed that the beautiful words of the hymn weren’t accurately reflected by the somber nature of its tune.  So that afternoon, he wrote a new tune for the hymn.  Jack Miller heard it and loved it. They sang it for the remainder of the conference. It became the theme for the week. This was the start of what would become Indelible Grace.

After Kevin had graduated from Covenant Seminary, He started working with students at Belmont University in Nashville as an RUF pastor.  In his numerous conversations with students, a common theme emerged.  Many of the students would come to him with doubts about their faith.  In Kevin’s words, “they would conclude that there was no way they could be Christians and still have these doubts and struggles.  I would say to them, ‘haven’t you read the Psalms?’ And it began to dawn on me that their idea of what it felt like to be a Christian was way more influenced by the songs they were singing than by the bible.”  Being troubled by this, he saw the need to begin singing substantive songs – songs rich in scriptural allusion and doctrinal truth – that would help bridge this gap.  The worship lexicon of these students was anemic.  They did not have a good means of connecting the Bible with their own personal experience.  The old hymns of the faith provided this bridge.  Kevin began to dig through hymnals and find good texts to sing, many of which had fallen out of use, such as Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul, and I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow.  He would photocopy these words for his students and tell them to consider them prayerfully.  It was a very different perspective from many of the songs the students had been singing.

Many aspiring singers and songwriters end up passing through Belmont.  Kevin’s young RUF group and his Sunday school class were full of talented folks.  In their meditation on some of these old texts, they also began to contribute new tunes to some of these hymns.  From 1995-99 the first round of Indelible Grace hymns were being developed and being sung in the Sunday school class and RUF meetings.  It was around that time that Kevin put an ad in the church bulletin asking help from anyone who had a home studio, so that he and his students could record the first Indelible Grace album.  Kevin says about the album, “we didn’t think we would get a chance to make another CD so we put seventeen tunes on that first one.  Then people just flipped out over it.”  He went on to say that he and his students realized, “people didn’t just like the CD, they really thought the vision, what it was about, was very important.” Soon after the release of that album, they made a second one. 

They also applied for and received a grant from the Calvin Institute of Worship.  The grant enabled them to transcribe all the music and compile the RUF hymnal, to be able to put together a tour, and to host a conference at Belmont.  The conference was attended by people from all over the country.  What Kevin and his students were doing resonated with many people, and some of them had been doing the same thing for years but didn’t realize there were others with the same vision.  Kevin said about the conference, “[It] seemed like God had been stirring up a desire to connect with these older streams among a lot of different people.”  And a connection with “older streams” is exactly what Kevin’s students needed in order to understand that they are not alone in their struggles, and that their faith is not a passing fad, but an abiding river.  Isn’t this what we all need?  To be connected to a broader community? 

The way we sing songs will always change over the course of time, but our common existence will always lead us down similar paths.  Indelible Grace sheds light on our past and helps connect it with our present reality. I encourage you to visit the Indelible Grace site and search through the online hymnbook and other resources available there.  Some of Kevin’s essays are on the site, as well as helpful articles written by others.  When you do, remember that you are a participant in a deeper, older stream, that has been here for thousands of years and will endure until the end of time.

James Parker is a staff member of Southwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Huntsville, Ala. This article was first published in the Southwood newsletter and is used with permission.