A Musical Journey with the Heidelberg Catechism

Jeremy Zeyl wasn’t sure if he felt a calling from God to turn any more parts of the Heidelberg Catechism, the 16th-century Reformed confession of faith, into contemporary worship songs.

The London, Ont., musician and worship leader says he had written and had begun performing “Not My Own,” based on the first question and answer in the catechism, for audiences. But that was it. He had no further plans to explore the historic text.

That changed after a concert at which he performed the song a few years ago. When the concert was over, a pastor approached him and suggested he try coming up with music and songs for other questions and answers from the catechism.

“The pastor told me the 450th anniversary of the catechism was coming up and wondered if I wanted to write more music based on it,” said Zeyl, a CRC member whose story is featured in a video that is part of Our Journey, the denomination’s new ministry plan.

“I decided to give it a try and sat down with the Heidelberg Catechism and read it through again. Right away, the words started leaping off the page.”

Poetic lines such as these in Q&A 69 about baptism captured his imagination: “as surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly his blood and his Spirit wash away my soul’s impurity.”

“I was able to write three songs in the first week,” said Zeyl, worship leader at Talbot Street CRC in London, Ont.

The Heidelberg Catechism was written in 1563 as a way to teach the newly Reformed understanding of faith and salvation to people living in parts of what is now Germany.

Zeyl, who grew up in the CRC, already had a personal connection to the catechism. He was going through a difficult time in his early 20s and felt anxious and lonely, not sure where to turn or what to do, when he attended a church service.

“That’s when I heard, as part of the liturgy, that first question, ‘What is your only comfort in life and in death?’ and the answer, ‘That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ,’” said Zeyl.

Hearing that immediately helped to lift his anxiety and loneliness, and, he said; “I realized God’s got all of this. I went home that day and wrote the song ‘Not My Own.’”

Zeyl and his folk group, Isobelle Gunn, played the song as they toured Canada, performing it along with a range of tunes in churches, coffee shops, and at folk festivals.

But Zeyl didn’t dip back into the catechism again until that pastor suggested it. When he did, words and music came in an inspirational flood, and he and his group recorded a CD titled The Heidelberg Project.

“The CD was designed to encourage churches to sing songs from the catechism, while there was also devotional music to listen to,” he said.

In writing the songs, Zeyl felt he had creative liberty to use the words to shape the music and, after completing that first CD, he realized he had enough material for a second CD, Body and Soul: A Worship Collective.

“As we visited churches and shared our songs, I found that this document from 1563 helped, as it did for me, ease the anxiety of people,” said Zeyl. “It helped define what we believe and bring people together.”

He said he performed the first CD mostly for CRC audiences but was able to reach broader groups with the second CD.

“There are beautiful theological truths in the Heidelberg Catechism, and we’ve been able to share those with thousands of people at conferences and in other settings,” he said.

One of those settings was for a national CRC audience that attended the Canadian Gathering, held earlier this year in Waterloo, Ont.

In preparing for the event and doing the worship music for it, Zeyl said he was deeply impressed by a fresh Spirit moving through the CRC as it holds on to its historic Reformed beliefs and at the same time uses them to address the world and people today.

“I came away from the Canadian Gathering with almost a sense that revival is taking place in our church, and I’m excited to see how worship can be part of that,” he said.

In coming weeks, CRC News will offer other stories featured in Our Journey, the denomination-wide ministry plan that “seeks to reflect the full richness of life in the CRC and gives church members a window into some different rooms in the same house,” said Bruce Buursma, a communications consultant who produced the videos for the project.