March 30, 2014

Each week, you may find information here about the organ music and hymns in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas.  Some of this information is original; much of it is "borrowed" from other sources such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org.  It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.  

About the Organ Music:

Children of the Heavenly Father – Dale Wood

The author of this text, Caroline W. Sandell Berg (1832-1903), is better known as Lina Sandell, the "Fanny Crosby of Sweden." Originally in Swedish ("Tryggare kan ingen vara"), the text was first published in Sandell-Berg's Andeliga daggdroppar (1855). Ernst W. Olson (1870-1958) prepared the English translation for the 1925 Hymnal of the Lutheran Augustana Synod.  The text is a confession of humble but confident trust in God's providence in the lives of his people. It reflects Lord's Day 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism: “in life and in death I belong to my faithful Savior.”

"Lina" Wilhelmina Sandell Berg was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor to whom she was very close; she wrote hymns partly to cope with the fact that she witnessed his tragic death by drowning. Many of her 650 hymns were used in the revival services of Carl O. Rosenius, and a number of them gained popularity particularly because of the musical settings written by gospel singer Oskar Ahnfelt. Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish soprano, underwrote the cost of publishing a collection of Ahnfelt's music, Andeliga Sänger (1850), which consisted mainly of Berg's hymn texts.

Children of the heavenly Father   safely in his bosom gather; nestling bird nor star in heaven      such a refuge e'er was given.     God his own shall tend and nourish   in his holy courts they flourish. From all evil powers he spares them; in his mighty arms he bears them. Neither life nor death shall ever    from the Lord his children sever; for to them his grace revealing,         he turns sorrow into healing. God has given, he has taken             but his children ne'er forsaken; his the loving purpose solely              to preserve them pure and holy.

 

Dale Wood (1934-2003) was a prominent composer, organist, choral director, and clinician.  He was honored many times by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for his “very important contribution towards the creation and development of contemporary American church music”.  He wrote many collections of organ works, most of which are based on both old and new hymn tunes.  Over eight million copies of his publications have been purchased in over 50 countries.

Wash, O God, Our Sons and Daughters – Wayne Wold

Ruth Duck (b. 1947) is professor of worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.  Duck has been writing hymns since 1974. The first time she heard one of her hymns being sung was in 1983 at a United Church of Christ General Synod. She writes, "2,000 people were singing my hymn. I was crying while two friends on either side held my hands. I feel that writing hymn texts is a central part of my call." That is a call she has followed ever since, a call that has resulted in hymns in most hymnals in use today.

Ruth Duck's hymn-texts sing many names for God as she lives the promises of her baptism. "Our language in worship says something about God and not just ourselves."  The idea of God that most people carry is too small and containing, Ruth said. In 1972, while at seminary, she was guest guitarist at a local church. Asked to use inclusive language, she took care to substitute "humanity" for "man" and "mankind."  Yet in one song, she sang "Father" over and over for God. Then, inclusive language meant changing language about humanity, not expanding the language of worship.  Biblical images for God reached beyond masculine and feminine dimensions of expression.  New names awaited discovery. She would use them in hymns or ritual words of the church.

“Wash, O God, Our Sons and Daughters” is one of those hymns in which she uses both mother and father images of God.  Speaking of her baptism, she said: "The baptismal water washed over me. It made tangible my dying and rising with Christ to new life in the Spirit. Baptism became then a sacrament of God's presence. I belonged to Christ. I was 'water-washed and Spirit-born.' I could feel God's presence as the pastor immersed me in the water. It was as if the Spirit of God were moving over the waters as at the first creation."  Her baptismal promise shaped her life, theology and hymn texts. Baptism is not an isolated event but a lifelong process, part of a continuing faith journey. In Dwight Vogel's words, Ruth reveals an understanding that "expanding our language is one way we can live out the grace, love, justice, and hope of our baptisms and our table communion."   "Baptism reaches beyond us," she writes. "It makes a difference in how we relate to other people and to God . . even how we relate to ourselves. We belong to one another, for at the water God makes us one people."

Word by word, Ruth Duck’s hymn texts became standards. At least fourteen denominational hymnals include them. "This pioneer in worship and hymnody continues to write remarkably apt and artistic hymns and service music, articulating our faith with insight and sensitivity," said composer and musician, Jim Manley. "She combines the personal and the theological in a beautiful manner."

Wash, O God, our sons and daughters, where your cleansing waters flow.
Number them among your people; bless as Christ blessed long ago.
Weave them garments bright and sparkling; compass them with love and light
Fill, anoint them; send your Spirit, holy dove and heart's delight.

We who bring them long for nurture; by your milk may we be fed.
Let us join your feast, partaking cup of blessing, living bread.
God, renew us, guide our footsteps; free from sin and all its snares,
one with Christ in living, dying, by your Spirit, children, heirs

Oh, how deep your holy wisdom! Unimagined, all your ways!
To your name be glory, honor! With our lives we worship, praise!
We your people stand before you, water washed and Spirit born.
By your grace, our lives we offer. Recreate us; God, transform!

Wayne L. Wold (b. 1954) is active as a teacher, church musician, composer, author, performer, and clinician. He serves as Associate Professor of Music and College Organist at Hood College in Frederick, Md. Over 200 of his compositions are published by fourteen different companies in the U.S. and Australia and include twenty volumes of works for organ and instruments with organ, 30 choir anthems, a children's musical, a recorder suite, and several hymn tunes. He is the author of numerous hymn and anthem texts, articles in professional journals, and two books -- Tune My Heart to Sing: Devotions for Choirs Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and Preaching to the Choir: The Care and Nurture of the Church Choir.

Baptism          wwwwwww  Confirmation

      

About the Hymns:

Lift High the Cross

George W. Kitchin (1827-1912) wrote the original version of this text in 1887 for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The hymn was intended to be used for a festival service at Winchester Cathedral, England. Michael R. Newbolt (1874-1956) revised the text for the 1916 Supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern.  Sir Sydney H. Nicholson (1875-1947) composed the tune “Crucifer” for the text as revised by Newbolt. The tune name means "cross-bearer" and refers to one who carries the cross in a liturgical procession.  Often considered Nicholson's finest tune, “Crucifer” has broad melodic gestures and an effective cadence to the stanzas, which leads right back into the refrain without interruption, pause, or slowing down. Perhaps similar to Constantine's vision of Christ's cross, this text makes clear that the cross is a symbol of Christ's love. "Lift High the Cross" reveals many implications of Christ's cross: Christ rallies his people behind him (st. 1-2); Christ gathers his people from throughout the world (st. 3-5); Christ gives healing to the despair of the world (st. 6); Christ's victory enjoins our praise to him (st. 7).

What Wondrous Love is This

What Wondrous Love Is This is sometimes described as a "white spiritual", from the American South. Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody derived that of from an English popular ballad. The hymn's lyrics were first published in Lynchburg, Virginia in the c. 1811 camp meeting songbook A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use. The lyrics may also have been printed, in a slightly different form, in the 1811 book Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected published in Lexington, Kentucky. In most early printings, the hymn's text was attributed to an anonymous author, though the 1848 hymnal The Hesperian Harp attributes the text to a Methodist pastor from Oxford, Georgia named Alexander Means.  Camp meeting attendees during the Second Great Awakening would sing the hymns printed in these hymnals to a variety of popular melodies, including "The Ballad of Captain Kidd", which was well known at the time; this is likely how the text and melody came to be paired.  The text and melody were first published together in The Southern Harmony, a book of shape note hymns compiled by William Walker.  In 1966, the United Methodist Hymnal became the first standard hymnal to incorporate “What Wondrous Love Is This”.  Today it is a widely known hymn included in many hymnals. 

Take Up Thy Cross

A passage from the synoptic gospels sets the stage for this hymn: "And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it"

Charles W. Everest (1814-1877) first recited a poem, "Vision of Death," on August 2, 1837, as a student in a class at Washington College, Hartford, Connecticut (now Trinity College). By request, he published it a month later. In 1845, the poem was included with others that the author called "Fugitive Poems" in a collection entitled Vision of Death; and Other Poems. "Take up thy cross" was among the other poems.  It is likely, however, that this poem was written at least a decade earlier. Baptist hymnologist Paul A. Richardson notes its appearance in Union Sabbath-School Hymns (1835). Indeed, this must have been one of the poems referred to by the author in the preface to Vision of Death (1845) when he said, "many have appeared in magazines and other periodicals."

This hymn is distinctive because it was one of only two hymns by American authors to appear in the significant British collection Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).  "Take up thy cross" remains one of the great hymns of Christian discipleship. As is the case with many hymns from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, faithfulness and even suffering in this life leads to heaven, or as Everest states:  “For only those who bear the cross, May hope to wear the glorious crown!”