Each week, you may find information here about the music 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 Piano Music:
He Leadeth Me - Larry Shackley
Although Joseph Gilmore (1834-1918) became a distinguished university and seminary professor, an author of several textbooks in Hebrew and English literature, and a respected Baptist minister, he is best remembered today for this one hymn, hurriedly written when he was just twenty-eight. Gilmore scribbled down these lines in 1862, while visiting with friends after preaching about the truths of the 23rd Psalm at the Wednesday evening service of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. He left this account:
At the close of the service we adjourned to Deacon Watson’s pleasant home, where we were being entertained. During our conversation the blessedness of God’s leading so grew upon me that I took out my pencil, wrote the text just as it stands today, handed it to my wife, and thought no more of it.
Without telling her husband, Mrs. Gilmore sent the verses to the “Watchman and Reflector Magazine”, where it first appeared the following year. Three years later Joseph Gilmore went to Rochester, New York, as a candidate to become the pastor of Second Baptist Church. He recalls:
Upon entering the chapel I took up a hymnal, thinking—I wonder what they sing here. To my amazement the book opened up at “He Leadeth Me,” and that was the first time I knew that my hurriedly written lines had found a place among the songs of the church.
William Bradbury, an important American contributor to early gospel hymnody, added two additional lines to the chorus: “His faithful foll’wer I would be, for by His hand He leadeth me.”
He leadeth me: O blessed thought! O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate'er I do, where'er I be, still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.
Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom, sometimes where Eden's flowers bloom,
by waters calm, o'er troubled sea, still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.
Lord, I would clasp thy hand in mine, nor ever murmur nor repine;
content, whatever lot I see, since 'tis my God that leadeth me.
And when my task on earth is done, when, by thy grace, the victory's won,
e'en death's cold wave I will not flee, since God through Jordan leadeth me.
He leadeth me, he leadeth me; by his own hand he leadeth me:
his faithful follower I would be, for by his hand he leadeth me.
Larry Shackley (b. 1956) is a full-time composer and editor from Columbia, SC. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and his Master in Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the University of South Carolina. From 1995-2007, he taught and directed the music program at Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. Prior to that, he worked for several years at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network. He has been active in church music since his teens, and served as staff keyboardist for ten years at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL. Currently, Shackley is on the staff of Gateway Baptist Church in Irmo, SC. He has produced over twenty books of keyboard arrangements and more than one hundred choral anthems. He has won ASCAP standard panel awards every year since 1998, and has received commissions from churches, schools, and community choirs across America.
Blest Be the Tie that Binds - Stan Pethel
John Fawcett (1740-1817) was born into a poor family in Yorkshire, England, and was orphaned at age 12. To survive, he accepted a lengthy apprenticeship to a tailor. While still in his teens, he heard the great George Whitfield preach and became a Christian. Fawcett became active in a Baptist church and was often asked to speak. At age 25 (and newly married), he was invited to serve as pastor of a small church at Wainsgate. The poor people of that little village were able to pay very little, and much of Fawcett's pay came as potatoes and other produce. Once his wife, Mary, began having children, they found it difficult to survive.
Fawcett learned that the pastor of a large Baptist church in London was retiring, and he let the church know that he would be interested in serving them. They called him to be their pastor at a much larger salary, so John and Mary packed their household and prepared to move. But, as the story is told, Mary told John that she didn't think she could leave these people whom they had both learned to love, and John admitted that he shared her sentiment; so, the two of them unpacked the wagon and told the London church know they wouldn't be coming.
Fawcett, who wrote a number of hymns during his lifetime, wrote the hymn, "Blest Be the Tie," to convey his sentiments and those of his wife to the poor people among whom they had chosen to live. Fawcett served that little church for the rest of his life –– 54 years in all.
Lowell Mason arranged DENNIS and first published it in The Psaltery (1845), a hymnal he compiled with George. Webb. Mason attributed the tune to Johann G. Nageli (1773-1836) but included no source reference. Nageli presumably published the original melody as the setting for "0 selig, selig, wervor dir" in his Christliches Gesangbuch (1828). Nageli was an influential music educator who lectured throughout Germany and France. Influenced by Johann Pestalozzi, he published his theories of music education in Gangbildungslehre (1810), a book that made a strong impact on Lowell Mason. Nageli composed choral works, including settings of Goethe's poetry. He received his early instruction from his father, then in Zurich, where he concentrated on the music of ]. S. Bach. In Zurich, he also established a lending library and a publishing house, which published first editions of Beethoven’s piano sonatas and music by Bach, Handel, and Frescobaldi. The tune name DENNIS is thought to refer to a town in Massachusetts.
Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne, We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, Our comforts, and our cares.
We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.
Dr. Stan Pethel is Chair of the Fine Arts at Berry College near Rome, Georgia. He has been on the music faculty there since 1973. In addition to his duties as Chair of Fine Arts at Berry College Dr. Pethel teaches music theory, composition and arranging, world music, and low brass lessons. He is a widely published composer and arranger with over 1000 works in publication with 26 different publishers. His writing includes works for choir, piano, organ/piano duet, symphonic band, jazz ensemble, orchestra, handbells, solo instrument and piano, and various chamber music ensembles. He is a regular recipient of the ASCAP Standard Award.
About the Vocal Solo Music:
Let Us Love One Another – Arnold Sherman
Arnold Sherman (b. 1948), currently living in Tyler, Texas, is a free-lance composer and co-founder of Red River Music. Sherman is the founder and Director of the East Texas Handbell Ensemble. A clinician and guest conductor, he has led choral and handbell workshops, festivals, and reading sessions throughout the United States, Canada, England, Japan and the Bahamas. Arnold has over three hundred choral and handbell pieces in print and has been an active member of the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers where he has served as Area IX Chairman.
“Let Us Love One Another” was written for the choir of First United Methodist Church in Henderson, Texas, and is based on I John 4: 7-11.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God,
And all who know and call upon his name are children of our Lord.
Beloved, this is what love is; not that we love God, but that he loves us
and sent his only Son to free us from our sin.
How can we not know our God? How can we not love our God?
He sent his only Son to die for all our sins.
Is there greater love that this?
Beloved, if this is how God loves, then we should love all men,
And live in perfect harmony with all, and God will live in us.
Let us love one another.
About the Hymns:
‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus
From her childhood, the call to missionary service was the guiding motivation for Louisa M. R. Stead (c. 1850-1917). Born in Dover, England, and converted at the age of nine, Stead came to the United States in 1871, living in Cincinnati. She attended a camp meeting in Urbana, Ohio, where she dedicated her life to missionary service. Ill health prevented her from serving initially. She married in 1875, and the couple had a daughter, Lily. Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck describes a major turning point in the family’s life:
“When the child was four years of age, the family decided one day to enjoy the sunny beach at Long Island Sound, New York. While eating their picnic lunch, they suddenly heard cries of help and spotted a drowning boy in the sea. Mr. Stead charged into the water. As often happens, however, the struggling boy pulled his rescuer under water with him, and both drowned before the terrified eyes of wife and daughter. Out of her ‘why?’ struggle with God during the ensuing days glowed these meaningful words from the soul of Louisa Stead.”
The hymn, “’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” was inspired by this personal tragedy.
Soon after, Lousia and Lily left for the Cape Colony, South Africa, where Louisa worked as a missionary for fifteen years. She married Robert Wodehouse, a native of South Africa. Because of her health, the family found it necessary to return to the United States in 1895. Wodehouse pastored a Methodist congregation during these years until, in 1900, they returned to the mission field, this time to the Methodist mission station at Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). Kenneth Osbeck records a message sent back to the United States shortly after her arrival in Southern Rhodesia:
“In connection with the whole mission there are glorious possibilities, but one cannot, in the face of the peculiar difficulties, help but say, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ But with simple confidence and trust we may and do say, ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’”
While the exact date of the composition is not known, Lousia Stead’s hymn was first published in Songs of Triumph (1882). The hymn might be described as a mantra on the name of Jesus. Indeed, “Jesus” is sung twenty-five times if one sings all four stanzas and the refrain.
The tune, TRUST IN JESUS, was written for this hymn by William Kirkpatrick in 1882. William James Kirkpatrick (1838-1921) was an American sacred music composer and publisher. He wrote the music for such familiar hymns as "Lead Me to Calvary," Jesus Saves!," "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus," "We Have an Anchor," "Redeemed," and "Meet Me There." With John R. Sweney, he published over eighty Gospel song collections during a period of seventeen years.
Trust and Obey
This hymn was inspired in 1886 when the composer of the music, Daniel B. Towner (1850-1919), was the music leader during one of Dwight L. Moody’s famous revivals. Towner provided the following account cited by Moody’s musical partner, Ira D. Sankey, in his biography, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns: “Mr. Moody was conducting a series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts, and I had the pleasure of singing for him there. One night a young man rose in a testimony meeting and said, ‘I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.’ I just jotted that sentence down, and sent it with a little story to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister. He wrote the hymn, and the tune was born.”
Sammis is said to have composed the lines of the refrain upon receiving the letter:
“Trust and obey—for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
As is the case with most gospel songs, these lines provide the central theme around which all of the stanzas were written. The text and first Towner’s tune, TRUST AND OBEY, appeared in the 1887 collection, Hymns Old and New, and has been included in countless hymnals since. Methodist hymnals in the United States have carried it since 1897.
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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