Rooted, Then Anchored
By Robert Wright · Music Minister, Ludden Chapel Baptist Church
Sunday, September 27, 2026 · “You Are Who You Are” · Matthew 7:15–20
Rev. Marcus Davis opened Matthew 7 with a farmer’s logic: a fig tree can only bear figs, not pears. From the choir stand, I began doing what a music minister does every Sunday morning, listening for where the message would land so the last song could meet it there.
The sermon did not stay in one place for long. When he said, “You can only bear what’s on the inside of you,” my mind went to “Give Me a Clean Heart.” When he said a bad tree doesn’t realize it’s a bad tree, I heard “Search Me, Lord.” When he told us God won’t let us treat people the way they treat us, “Victory Shall Be Mine” rose up, the song of holding your peace. Every turn offered a different closer.
Then he said something that gathered the rest: you can be planted anywhere, but you must be rooted in prosperous soil. Later he added that a rooted tree may bend with the wind, but it will come back. And finally he took us to the cross, the good tree, “the emblem of suffering and shame.”
“You can be planted anywhere, but you must be rooted in prosperous soil.”
— Rev. Marcus Davis
He quoted “The Old Rugged Cross” from the pulpit, and it would have been an easy choice. But the weight of the sermon had settled on roots, on what holds a life steady when the wind blows. So we sang “My Soul Has Been Anchored in the Lord.” An anchor is a root on the water. It does not keep the storm away; it keeps you from being carried off.
That is the discipline of the choir stand. The closing song should not simply echo the preacher’s last line. It should answer the question the whole sermon has been asking. Sunday’s question was simple: what are you rooted in? The congregation sang the answer. ■
| SONGS FOR ROOTED TREES | My Soul Has Been Anchored in the Lord — Douglas Miller (the closer) The Old Rugged Cross — George Bennard I Shall Not Be Moved — traditional spiritual |
