Introducing a New Hymn:
The Fire of Commitment

I hate to give away the culminating point of my sermon, but I think I'm going to do it. I'm about to talk about a couple of things, but the point of it all ends up being that I think we should be really proud of our Unitarian Universalist faith, proud enough to talk about it to others even, because in doing so we become representations of our values. And our values are something that the world needs more of.

So why am I telling you this up front? It's because I've found a song that sort of says the same thing. And I want us to sing it after my sermon. But I don't want us to be bad at it!

So…what Randy and I have come up with is a little tutorial of this song for you, before the sermon, so that you can just enjoy singing it after the sermon!

Let me tell you a tiny bit more about it now, and then I'll hand it over to Randy.

You might remember that last week, as part of the Heartfelt Play, we all sang Standing On The Side of Love. This morning's final hymn, The Fire of Commitment, is written by the same composer, Jason Shelton.

He is the Music Director at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville, Tennessee, he served on the task force that developed Singing the Journey, the hymn book supplement that features a few of his songs, and he is also the first UU music director to receive fellowship as a UU minister. His music IS his ministry. His lyrics are based on UU theology and principles, and his music is his way of conveying the message of Unitarian Universalism to the world.

He says, "Many of our fellow religionists think of us as little more than the ACLU with a choir. When we neglect the sources of our faith and claim only our individual conscience as our guide without talking about what informs our conscience, we give up the authority that gives us theological credibility. We have a deep and abiding faith. When we embrace it we've got something to sing about."

I think we've got something to sing about. So let's learn Jason's hymn now so we can do just that at the end of the service.