‘Disciples of all nations’
LUBBOCK, Texas — SUNSET INTERNATIONAL BIBLE INSTITUTE reaches far beyond…
Voices only: ‘Ten Thousand Angels’ and a 6-year-old
LUBBOCK, Texas — I couldn’t help but chuckle when Benjamin Sisemore, age 6, jumped up to lead one of his favorite hymns — “Ten Thousand Angels.”
A small group of us had gathered in The Well, a coffeehouse used by the Sunset Church of Christ for its campus ministry. We sang a few songs to close out a day of sermons, Bible classes and fellowship at the Sunset Vision Workshop, an annual event hosted by Sunset International Bible Institute.
We picked up hymnals and called out the numbers of our favorite songs — old school!
Some folks told stories of how a particular song had impacted their lives. One woman talked about how the hymn “Because He Lives” had helped her get through her first experiences as a single mother.
It was powerful.
A late-night devotional concludes a day of sermons, Bible classes and fellowship at the Sunset Vision Workshop in Lubbock, Texas.
Leading the devotional were Benjamin’s dad, Levi, and Tony Kite. They’re instructors at the annual Texas Normal Singing School, which happens every summer in Abilene, Texas. Levi Sisemore is minister of worship and involvement for the Fredericksburg Church of Christ in Texas.
His son’s song selection immediately sent me back to the pews of the Southside Church of Christ in Macon, Ga., where I grew up. (It’s now the Thomaston Road Church of Christ.)
Whenever we’d have a song request night, inevitably “Ten Thousand Angels” would come up. It was No. 507 in our hymnals, as I recall. The young men of our church loved it. (I suspect is had something to do with the line, “He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free.”) I clearly remember one young man, not much older than Benjamin, with the song book tenuously balanced in his hands. He could barely see over the podium, and he yelled out, “Number FAHV-OH-SEVEN!”
The song, by the way, was written in the late 1950s by Ray Overholt, and here’s a pretty incredible story about its genesis.
A few more photos from the workshop:
The Well is a coffeehouse and meeting place of the Sunset Church of Christ campus ministry.
Levi Sisemore keeps a foil-embossed song book from the Texas Normal Singing School.
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