Most of the songs we sing at our gathering are from The Celebration Hymnal, but not all. We are not professional musicians, but once in a while one of our members creates a new song to honor God or tell His story. The following are some unique home-grown songs we use for worship at Wascana Fellowship.
UPDATE: October 2, 2022: New Song
Psalms 100 and 14 Wanda Valade combined and set these Psalms to a traditional Austrian tune popularized in her youth by a young performer named Heintje.Â
UPDATE: September 30, 2022: Many of our songs are now on YouTube, plus a new song
YouTube links are posted below many of the songs in the list below.
Who Am I? A song based on Jesus questioning His disciples about who they thought He was.
We have a few more new songs to sing here at Wascana Fellowship since the last update. We have nothing to sell, so we try to identify the source of any tunes we conscript into our lyrics. Most of our songs are intended for teaching as we worship, so many are paraphrases of biblical texts. Some of those include Christian answers or observations about what is in the biblical texts.
The Divine Congregation Psalm 82 describes a meeting of God’s divine council, a group of angelic beings who were given control over parts of the human population from the time God confused the languages and scattered the human population. God appears unhappy with their rule.
UPDATE: April 1, 2018: 22 New Songs – I have fallen far behind in posting our songs. The recordings for this group of songs are generated from the music notation software I have been using rather than being live recordings by a musician, so the chording will be rather artless.
UPDATE: November 10, 2013:Â Two New Songs – In spite of the general busyness of life Wanda and John Valade have written two more songs for worship at Wascana Fellowship.
Jesus Christ Has Provided – This song’s melody originated in a well-known commercial jingle that Wanda Valade slightly reworked and John Valade lyricised.
The following four songs are based on tunes written by much better musicians than I (John Valade) am, as well as I remembered them. For the most part they were melodies I heard in the background on our cable music service, so I do not usually know the origins. All I did was write lyrics and sometimes change the timing a bit.
A Feast of Trumpets – This is the most original of the four songs, but could be characterized as “written in the style of Dwight Armstrong.” It is probably a mix of melodic lines I picked up from the old Worldwide Church of God hymnal, but with original lyrics suggested by Psalm 81.
A Stream of Living Waters Flows – The melody and flowing nature of this piece as I heard it haunted me and suggested the phrase “stream of living water flows from my God.”
O My Shepherd – The piece of Celtic music this originally comes from had a slower tempo than this reworking. The melody line inspired the first phrase.
Who Can Compare – This melody line may be the most famous one I have borrowed. The instrumental version of “On the Boat to the Isle of Skye” that I heard is such a hauntingly beautiful piece that it cried out to be turned into a hymn.
There’s a Place in My Heart Wanda Valade playing what she remembers of a Rankin Family tune with words by John Valade.
The Holy City A Meditation on Revelation 21 & 22 by Gail Leippi.
The Rock A melody by Wanda Valade that features paraphrases from Isaiah 8 & 9 and Psalm 124 about Jesus Christ as the Rock that some stumble over and others find refuge in.
Return Back in March of 2010 our friend Joan Ellis requested a musical treatment of Ezekiel 11:19-20 (God replacing a heart of stone with a heart of flesh) for use in her church.
The End of Sin is song for the themes of judgment and atonement associated with the Day of Atonement, a Biblical festival we celebrate in the autumn of each year. The music is the same as The Good Shepherd in our song list.
A Fire From the Presence of God A song commemorating Pentecost with Old Testament imagery drawn from the dedication of the Tabernacle in the wilderness and Elijah’s prayer.
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