A Hymn for Meeting Fellow Believers

Lord willing, this coming week I'll get to enjoy my Christmas gift from this past year:  attending Sing!, the Getty Music Worship Conference in Nashville.

I'm blessed to have my sister joining me, too! 

I'm looking forward to quite a bit of spiritual refreshment centered around hymns and the theme of the conference (which is "The Great Commission.")

I'm also looking forward to the prospect of meeting new people.

While the introvert part of me balks a bit about that, it helps me to remember that the tie that binds believers is even stronger than good hymns. We have a common mercy seat.

Is there a hymn for that? Absolutely. 

While I look forward to "meeting" my own church family every week for worship and fellowship and our tie is strong (praise the Lord for that!), it's incredibly encouraging to know that I can move past the doors of my own church and find fellow believers elsewhere and meet around God's mercy seat with them, too. 

It reminds me that God is working across the entire globe and His view is always much, much bigger than mine own. 

Jesus, Where'er Thy People Meet

by William Cowper

Jesus, where'er your people meet,
There they behold your mercy seat;
Where'er they seek you, you are found,
And ev'ry place is hallowed ground.

For you, within no walls confined,
Are dwelling in the humble mind;
Such ever bring you where they come,
And going, take you to their home.

Dear Shepherd of your chosen few,
Your former mercies here renew;
Here to our waiting hearts proclaim
The sweetness of your saving name.

Here may we prove the pow'r of pray'r
To strengthen faith and sweeten care,
To teach our faint desires to rise,
And bring all heav'n before our eyes.

Lord, we are few, but you are near;
Nor short your arm, nor deaf your ear;
O rend the heav'ns, come quickly down,
And make a thousand hearts your own.