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; most of it is copied from other websites 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:
Epilogue - Alec Rowley
(c.1955, Novello & Co)
The Epilogue is the finsl movement of the Triptych by Alec Rowley. Alec Rowley (1892-1958) studied at London's Royal Academy of Music, and later taught at Trinity College in the same city. He frequently performed and broadcast piano duets with Edgar Moy, and was widely known for his songs and compositions for solo piano and solo organ. He was for many years the organist of St Alban's Church, Teddington and was a contributor to “The Rotunda”, the house magazine of Henry Willis & Sons Ltd., organ builders.
About the Piano Music:
Discipleship Medley - Paul Tate
(c.2006, GIA Publications)
"Take, O Take Me As I Am" is one of the best-known and often-used songs from the Iona Community in Scotland, having found its way into numerous hymnals, songbooks, and arrangements. The Iona Community is an ancient Christian community on the small island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides Islands of western Scotland. It was founded by St. Columba, a monk from Ireland and missionary to Scotland, in 563 A.D. It became an important monastery in the Early Middle Ages and played a major role in the conversion of the Picts to Christianity and in the evangelization of Europe. Today, the Iona Community is a place of pilgrimage from all over the world. It has become a major center for ecumenism, social justice, healing, reconciliation, and worship renewal.
John Lamberton Bell was born in 1949 in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. He is a hymn writer, minister in the Church of Scotland, and a member of the Iona Community. He leads Iona's global efforts in worship renewal at the local church level. In that capacity, he travels throughout the world lecturing, writing, leading, teaching, and composing. His early career was spent in church youth work and campus ministry and later in the areas of worship and music with the Iona Community's Wild Goose Worship Group. He is a past convener of the Church of Scotland's Panel on Worship, and he also convened the Committee to revise the Church Hymnary (Fourth Edition), of which he was also music editor. He is a frequent contributor of programs and lectures on the BBC. He composed "Take, O Take Me As I Am" in 1995.
The simple, direct words of this short worship song's four phrases are profound in their content and implications for the singer:
Take, O take me as I am, Summon out what I shall be.
Set your seal upon my heart, And live in me.
“Will you come and follow me” (called “The Summons” in The Faith We Sing) is perhaps the most famous of Mr. Bell’s hymns. The hymn appeared initially in the first collection of music produced by the Wild Goose Worship Group, Heaven Shall Not Wait: Songs of Creation, the Incarnation, and the Life of Jesus (1987). Characteristic of Mr. Bell’s style, the text is prophetic, using many words not usually found in traditional hymns. “The Summons” of Christ is to a radical Christianity.
The tune is a traditional Scottish ballad entitled KELVINGROVE, named after a section of Glasgow. Mr. Bell often uses traditional melodies from Ireland, Scotland and England for his hymns. These tried and true tunes make the songs not only singable, but often provide a Celtic flavor that is popular today.
Will you come and follow me If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown In you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer In you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean In you and you in me?
Will you love the 'you' you hide If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound In you and you in me?
Lord, your summons echoes true When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you And never be the same.
In your company I'll go Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow In you and you in me.
Paul A. Tate, a graduate of the University of Georgia, is a professional musician living in Sugar Hill, Georgia. As an active workshop presenter and concert performer, Paul has released a dozen recordings and published over 100 original songs and arrangements. His liturgical compositions appear in a number of hymnal resources, and his voice has been heard around the world on Sirius Satellite Radio.
About the Choral Music:
Be Not Afraid – Taylor Davis
(c. 2003, Choristers Guild)
Taylor Davis (b. 1980) is currently the Director of Music and Worship at Holy Covenant United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. A 2003 graduate of Centenary College of Louisiana, Taylor earned a Bachelor of Sacred Music degree while studying conducting with Dr. Julia Brasher Thorn, as well as intensive courses with Dr. Sandra Willets, Dr. Ann Howard Jones, Paul Oakley, Alice Parker and Jane Marshall. He has also studied composition with Dr. Eric McIntyre, Ms. Parker, and Ms. Marshall. In 2004 he became a Fellow of Melodious Accord. In demand across the country, with commissions coming from a wide variety of groups, his music has been performed throughout the US, Europe, South America and South Africa by youth and adults.
“Be Not Afraid” is based on Isaiah 43:1-7.
Be not afraid, for I have redeemed you.
Be not afraid, I’ve called you by name.
My love for you is everlasting, my love for you shall have no end.
You are my child, and I’ll love you always.
Just hold my hand, and I’ll lead you home.
When you feel lost, always remember: I am right here, just call my name.
When you pass through the waters, I will surround you,
When you pass through the floods, they will not sweep o’er.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be consumed.
You are my child, you are so precious to me.
About the Hymns:
I Am Thine, O Lord
Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915) set the standard for the successful writing of gospel hymns. She was the author of over 8,500 gospel songs. Blind at six weeks of age, Crosby began composing texts at age 6. At 12, she began her study at the New York School for the Blind, a school she later served as a teacher. A friend of several presidents, she became one of the country’s most important advocates for the cause of the blind, addressing a session of Congress on the topic.
Her texts were set to the compositions of some of the most prominent gospel song composers of the day including William Bradbury, William Doane, Robert Lowry and Ira Sankey. Crosby also composed under a number of pen names. She married blind musician Alexander Van Alstyne, and British hymnals have always used her married name, Frances Van Alstyne.
“I am Thine” is one of many collaborations between Crosby and composer William Doane (1832-1915). The late Baptist hymnologist William J. Reynolds provides the context for the composition of the hymn in 1874 during a visit by Crosby to Doane’s home in Cincinnati:
“One evening she and Doane talked at length about the nearness of God in their lives. When Fanny went to her room, her mind and heart were flooded with ideas from their conversation. Before she went to sleep, the lines of “I am thine, O Lord” were in her mind. . . . The next morning she recited the words to Doane, who wrote down the stanzas and composed the tune.”
The text appeared with the following inscription from Hebrews 10:22: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” (KJV)
Crosby seems to mix her cleansing metaphors intentionally—“pure water” and “bleeding side.” The connection becomes clearer when one reads the previous verses in Hebrews 10: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God. . . .”
Like so many of Crosby’s hymns, “I am thine, O Lord” is written in the first person—a personal testimony of her relationship with Christ. Stanza one begins with a total surrender to Christ, “I am thine, O Lord,” and the desire to “be closer drawn to thee.” The second stanza appropriately draws upon the closeness of this relationship as an impetus of service: “Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine.” Stanza three defines the relationship further as one forged in prayer: “When I kneel in prayer, and with thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend!” In the final stanza, Crosby acknowledges that her relationship will not be complete until she reaches heaven (“cross the narrow sea”) and then she will find “rest in peace with thee.” The refrain is the theological hub around which the spokes of the stanzas all connect: “Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side.” In this case, it is Christ’s blood that cleanses and perfects the relationship. Fanny Crosby is thoroughly Wesleyan in her understanding of grace and perfection.
I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith And be closer drawn to Thee.
Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord, By the pow’r of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope, And my will be lost in Thine.
Oh, the pure delight of a single hour That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God I commune as friend with friend!
There are depths of love that I cannot know Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach Till I rest in peace with Thee.
Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To Thy precious, bleeding side.
O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee
In the years following the Civil War and the birth of the Industrial Revolution, the social gospel emerged. Washington Gladden (1838-1918) was one of the most distinguished clergymen of his era and a leader in the social gospel movement. Gladden was a native of Pennsylvania, and served churches in New York and Massachusetts before accepting a call to First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio, a parish he served for 32 years. Educated at Owego Academy and Williams College, he was the moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches from 1904-1907. He served as one of the editors of the Pilgrim Hymnal (1904). As editor of the Independent, he made important contributions to the cause of social justice. While a pastor in Massachusetts, Gladden began preaching about labor-management problems, encouraging cooperation between employers and employees. This theme aroused opposition from those who felt the role of a minister was “to save souls, not to regulate business.” Furthermore, he challenged the idea that the Bible was inerrant in matters of science and history. Albert Bailey notes that “he found his fellow-clergymen without courage to follow him, for heresy trials were beginning in the Congregational Church.” From the Ohio pulpit, Gladden found willing listeners to his message at the State University of Columbus. He received invitations to deliver lectures at a number of universities including the Yale Divinity School. His tracts, Social Facts and Forces (1897) and Organized Labor and Capital (1904), were very influential.
Perhaps this hymn is a paradox. Few realize that behind the relatively peaceful words of Gladden’s poem, sung to a placid Victorian melody, one can find the witness of a champion for social justice. This hymn was published in 1879 in three eight-line stanzas in Sunday Afternoon, a magazine prepared by the author, under the title “Walking with God.” C.H. Richards discovered the poem and included it in his 1880 hymnal, Christian Praise.
After various tunes had been set to this text, Gladden insisted on the use of MARYTON. Composed by H. Percy Smith (b. Malta, 1825; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, 1898), the tune was originally published as a setting for John Keble's "Sun of My Soul" in Arthur S. Sullivan's Church Hymns with Tunes (1874). Henry Percy Smith (1825-1898) was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, England, and ordained a priest in the Church of England. He served five churches, including St. Michael's York Town in Farnborough, Great Barton in Suffolk, Christ Church in Cannes, France, and the Cathedral in Gibraltar. MARYTON is his only tune found in contemporary hymnals and is thought to be the only tune he published.
O Master, let me walk with Thee in lowly paths of service free;
tell me Thy secret; help me bear the strain of toil, the fret of care.
Help me the slow of heart to move by some clear, winning word of love;
teach me the wayward feet to stay, and guide them in the homeward way.
Teach me Thy patience, still with Thee in closer, dearer company,
in work that keeps faith sweet and strong, in trust that triumphs over wrong.
In hope that sends a shining ray far down the future's broad'ning way;
in peace that only Thou canst give, with Thee, O Master, let me live.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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