Sometime last year I noticed that in "Built on the Rock" (sung to the tune "Kirken den er et gammelt hus"), "falling" in the line "Even when steeples are falling" is sung to a descending melody, which musically illustrates the "falling." Since it's only two notes (D to C) and only an interval of a second, I initially didn't regard this as significant enough to write about. When I watched
the One LSB Hymn a Week video of it though, I realized that (in
The Lutheran Service Book arrangement, at least) there's a larger descending phrase ("larger" in terms of number of notes and musical breadth) below this.
Here's the melody for "Even when steeples are falling" (the second phrase of the tune):
And here's one of the harmony parts:
In the last two measures, coincident with "falling," there's a descent spanning a major third (G to Eb).