Creed

(c) 2018 Paul Marxhausen

Comments: When our worship leaders decided to use more music in the liturgical elements of my church's contemporary services, I looked at the creed first of all. There are many contemporary Christian songs involving creeds, and we have used them, but I noticed that many of them either pick and choose just parts of the traditional creeds; or, if they are more thorough, the resulting song can be much longer than a creed that is simply read. The latter is not a deal-breaker, but for Sunday-to-Sunday use in our time-limited services I wanted something both true to our creeds and musically succinct.

This song is an almost verbatim reading of the Apostle's Creed. For metrical reasons I chose to borrow "Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of Life" and "the life of the world to come" from the Nicene creed. It clocks in at about 1:30, depending upon tempo. I like the fingerpicked guitar version but I think the keyboard version (scored) is easier to track and sing along with.

The recent popularity of sea chanteys reminded me that I grew up on folk songs and Burl Ives and such, and the melody for this song came so quickly I have an uneasy suspicion I lifted it from somewhere. My daughter says it reminds her of "The Ballad of Davey Crockett". Be that as it may, I've had many, many people tell me that now they hear this in their heads whenever they speak the Apostle's Creed, and kids seem to catch onto it, so thank you, whoever the author of this melody actually is.