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One of the songs that our church really likes to sing is called “God of This City”.  Every time we do, we try to bring our attention to the neighborhood that surrounds the building where we meet and we sing and pray about the “greater things” that God will do in our community.  It’s quite a visceral experience since our church meets on the 3rd floor of a building and we can physically look out over the rooftops and sing over the ones we are here to serve and love.

Well, after the 2^nd or 3^rd time we sang this song as a congregation, Buck, one of the older gentlemen in our church, approached me. (Okay, on a complete side note, I just have to share that whenever an older brother or sister approaches me at a church service regarding music, I usually prepare for the worst.  Like “it’s too loud”, and “why do we repeat the words so much” or “can’t we sing more hymns?!?!”  I have to say that we have been blessed by some incredibly mature, mature members at UPCC, because they are usually rocking out more than me!!)  Buck told me how much he likes it when we sing that song and that we should keep singing it, but he had one piece of advice.  He told me that people in our community don’t think of this area as a “city”.  And it’s true, you really never hear folks from the community refer to this area as a “town” or “city”.  Buck reminded me that the folks round these parts say they are “from the Valley”.  His request was that we change the lyrics to sing “You’re the God of this valley…”.

It was a great suggestion and Buck, if you ever read this I want you to know that I LOVE your idea!!!  The only problem is that it doesn’t quite sing as well that way.  It’s probably just because I am so used to hearing it the original way, but the few times that I tried to lead the song with “valley” in the place of “city”, I just felt that it wasn’t quite as lyrical.  Plus, I always feel a little weird about changing the words to somebody else’s song (even though Chris Tomlin significantly edited the song from its original Bluetree version).  But I loved the idea of being able to sing a song that held some sentimental, spiritual, significance like what Buck suggested.

So eventually I concluded that I would just have to write a song that conveyed these ideas.  Now this is scary for me, since I really have never written a song designed for congregational worship.  I know that may sound weird to some of you, but it’s true.  I’ve always written songs that were pretty personal and while certainly reflected the spiritual journey I was on, didn’t lend themselves too well to corporate worship.  Nevertheless I thought that an original song could be a great ebenezer (little definition quiz there for you attentive types) for our community to remind us all what God has done here and how far He has brought us, not only as a local church, but in the greater scheme of redemption.  Plus, I REALLY like Buck’s idea and thought it deserved some effort on my part.

So here is the first draft of a song I titled “From the Valley”.  I am planning on introducing it to UPCC this Sunday morning and hope that it’s a song we can all rally around.  Again, I am a little nervous that it may not live up to the great songs we sing each Sunday, but in the end I hope that it is pleasing to God and a great reminder to us all of what He has done for us as a church.

From the Valley

Verse 1

Some He has called out of the desert

Some He has led from shallow wells

From despair too great to measure

From the very place we fell

Chorus

From the valley he has lifted us

And placed us high upon a mountaintop

We will sing over the rooftops “we are free”!

We will be a light upon this hill

Vessels we know only He can fill

So the glory of our Father can be seen

From the valley

Verse 2

Now He has given us the vict’ry

And has saved us from ourselves

He has erased our shameful history

And pulled us from the depths of Hell

Chorus

From the valley he has lifted us

And placed us high upon a mountaintop

We will sing over the rooftops “we are free”!

We will be a light upon this hill

Vessels we know only He can fill

So the glory of our Father can be seen

From the valley

Daniel R Harney © 2011, Grain of Salt Music

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