Abba Father

Calvin College’s chaplain Andy De Jong is doing a chapel series on the Lord’s Prayer. He asked if I would compose a new tune for a text by Thomas Troeger called “Let All Who Pray the Prayer Christ Taught.” It turned out to be quite a challenge. It’s quite a thick text which doesn’t lend itself naturally to the meditative spirit you’d expect from a song about praying. So I put Troeger’s text in the mouth of the leader and gave the congregation a simple “Abba, Father” as a response. Here’s the demo. I hope you like it. More importantly, I hope that Thomas likes it, because I’ll be working with him next summer at Lake Junaluska. I can just imagine our first meeting: “Greg Scheer. (silence) So you’re the guy who ruined my song.”