Every once in awhile, something happens in Sunday morning worship that I didn't even know was planned.

Yesterday was one of those occasions.

Our music set was decidedly "chill": acoustic instrumentation, worship-leading choir, Chris Macedo leading it all from the keyboards rather than acoustic guitar.

Then, out of nowhere, as we moved into Revelation Song, our own Becky Gonzalez stepped forward and started singing in Spanish:

Digno es el cor... dero que murio
Santo, santo es El
Nuevo canto.... para el que esta en el.... trono celestial

CORO
Santo, santo, santo
Es el Dios poderoso
Quien fue, quien http
Con la creacion yo canto
Al Rey de Reyes exalto
Tu eres mi todo Dios
Y yo te... adoro

It was unexpected, haunting, and full color.

We then brought it back to English:

Worthy is the... Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song... to Him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat

CHORUS
Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing
Praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will... adore you

The effect on me was profound: gratitude for Chris' planning, appreciation for Becky's voice, and contentment that our Spanish speaking friends would feel so at home in the worship gathering.

But more than that ... because it was such a surprise, I was better able to give God worship.

Routine is often the enemy of connection.

A living relationship with Jesus Christ inevitably invovles the unpredictable and the unexpected.

Dios le bendiga.

So we sang How Great Thou Art on Sunday. It was terrific. Even in a modern church, if you want to get everyone singing, just pull out one of the classics and it happens.

But the software system we use to project the words onto the screen now lists the songwriter(s)and copyright date of each piece we do.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this at the bottom of the screen: Stuart K. Hine, 1953.

1953?! For How Great Thou Art?! Surely that must be a mistake. I thought it must have been written just after the completion of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

So I double-checked. 1953 is right. After the Great Depression. After World War II. After Dwight Eisenhower was elected president. After even the invention of television.

In other words, How Great Thou Art is a relatively recent piece of hymnody. The church existed for 1900+ years without it.

Which goes to show that all worship is fundamentally contemporary. It's just that How Great Thou Art is contemporary to the 1950s, while Marvelous Light is contemporary to the 2000s.

There is nothing in How Great Thou Art that makes it inherently more biblical or more reverent than Marvelous Light.

There are things in it that make it more comfortable -- chief among them the sense of nostalgia it brings to many who sing it.

In the modern worship wars, we have often confused the traditional with the ancient. Many assume that because a song or a style has been around for as long as they can remember ("I grew up singing that hymn!") then it has always been around. Not so.

In fact, I believe that if we were exposed to worship settings that were truly ancient -- say, first century Christian celebrations taking place in house churches -- we would find them incomprehensible.

Almost like taking a high church Episcopalian and putting him in the middle of an emergent Christian mosh pit (they exist).

Our task, then, is to take truths that are ancient and communicate them in ways that are comprehensible. In a song like Marvelous Light, for example.

Or How Great Thou Art.