Update Oct. 5, 2009! By Thy Mercy: Indelible Grace Acoustic, Vol. 1 - Lead sheets and chord charts are now available for the hymns that are included on By Thy Mercy: Indelible Grace Acoustic Vol. 1.
Hymnbook and Songbook available for purchase at new IGraceMusic.com Store!There is a printed version of this website
available for purchase: The RUF Hymnbook, a collection of 143
songs! The hymnbook comes with three "learner" CDs
that can help worship leaders learn the songs easily. And also
available: the Indelible Grace Songbook, Vol. 1 (IG 1 & 2) and Vol. 2 (IG 3 & 4). Purchase
these printed editions here!
Hymnbook FAQ
- If you already own the RUF Hymnbook, check
here for pages that have been corrected and for answers
to any questions concerning the development and concept of the
book.
Indelible Grace Discussion Board
- Click
here to talk about worship, hymns, music, etc.
“The challenge is to provide
roots and wings – to bring young people into a sense of connectedness
with the past that doesn’t rob them of their vision of the
future.” Gerard Kelly
Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) is proud
to be able to share with the church at large, some of the rich
music that has developed within our various chapters over the
last 25 years. We desire to teach our students about the songs
of the church and to value the wonderful heritage we have in the
hymns. But we also want to encourage our students to build on
the tradition. We have been thrilled to see a movement gaining
momentum - a movement to help the church recover the tradition
of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to
enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace.
We have found through years of ministering to college students
that there is a real hunger to connect with something real and
solid, something that is ancient, yet full of passion. Putting
old hymns to new music allows us to hear afresh the rich theology
and emotion that fill these hymns.
C.H. Spurgeon, the great 19th century Baptist
said once that whenever he came upon a mystery in the Bible, he
considered that God had set a little altar there for him to kneel
and worship. That’s good advice! And the great hymn writers
love to dwell on the paradoxes of our faith that cause us to fall
on our faces in worship -- “And can it be? That Thou my God,
should die for me?!” In essence, the hymns are mini-meditations
on the inexplicable glories of the gospel in all its fullness.
Our experience has been that when people taste the rich legacy
of the hymns, set to music that flows out of who we are in our
moment of history, it is hard for them to go back to merely singing
praise choruses.
Some of these hymns are guitar adaptations
of traditional tunes, but many are fresh tunes written mostly
by students within the ministry. Many have desired written music
to help them incorporate these hymns into their own worship and
so now we are proud to be able to provide this for you.
There have been several cds of this music released
to date. Texas A&M’s RUF CD and Cloud of Witnesses (done
by some Vanderbilt students) were released in the late 1990s,
as was Auburn’s first CD“Boundless Free…”
Belmont University released “Indelible Grace” in 2000,
followed soon after by NYU’s “From All Their Sin And
Sorrow”. Next came the Belmont group’s follow up “Pilgrim
Days” and the latest CD was Auburn’s second offering
“Love Unknown.” Most of these CDs are available through
the websites www.igracemusic.com
and www.ruf.org
and we hope soon to have on these sites even more information
about the hymns and hymnwriters as well as extra verses and other
helpful resources. If you have written piano arrangements or parts
for other instruments for these songs and are willing to share
them with others, please email Kevin Twit at ktwit@ruf.org
We are still working on full piano transcriptions
of all the tunes recorded on the cds “Indelible Grace”
and “Pilgrim Days” and hope to have those finished soon.
We also plan yearly updates for this collection to continue to
share all of the great music being written. Thanks for your support
and we encourage you to try your hand at putting old hymns to
new music too! Grace and peace,
Rev. Kevin Twit,
RUF Campus Minister, Belmont University
College Pastor at Christ Community Church, Franklin TN ktwit@ruf.org
