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:
Meditation on Adoro te Devote - Alfred V. Fedak
(c.1999, Selah Publishing Co)
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, who was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known within the scholastic tradition as the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor Universalis. The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. Among other things, he was a prominent proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. He argued that God is the source of both the light of natural reason and the light of faith. He has been described as the most influential thinker of the medieval period and the greatest of the medieval philosopher-theologians. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy is derived from his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.
Unlike many currents in the Catholic Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle—whom he called "the Philosopher"—and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–1259), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), and the unfinished but massively influential Summa Theologica, or Summa Theologiae (1265–1274). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the church's liturgy. The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (philosophy, Catholic theology, church history, liturgy, and canon law). Pope Benedict XV declared: "This (Dominican) Order ... acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools."
“Adoro te devote” is one of five beautiful hymns St. Thomas Aquinas composed in honor of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Pope Urban IV's (1261-1264) request when the Pope first established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. The hymn is found in the Roman Missal as a prayer of thanksgiving after Mass.
The paraphrase of the Latin text found in our hymnal is:
Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
here drink with Thee the royal wine of heav'n;
here would we lay aside each earthly load,
here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiv'n.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
this is the heav'nly table spread for me;
here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
the brief, bright hour of fellowship with Thee.
Too soon we rise, the symbols disappear;
the feast, though not the love, is past and done;
gone are the bread and wine, but Thou art here,
nearer than ever, still my Shield and Sun.
Feast after feast thus comes, and passes by;
yet passing, points to the glad feast above;
giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
the Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.
Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953) holds degrees from Hope Colege and Montclair State College. A Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, he is Minister of Music at United Reformed Church, Somerville, New Jersey.
Toccata on "All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly" - Franklin Ashdown
(c.2018, Sacred Music Press)
Canadian clergywoman Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993) became one of the leading hymn writers in North America during her brief life. Her hymn texts appear increasingly in hymnals in the United States. A graduate of York University with degrees in theology and divinity from Emmanuel College in Toronto led to her ordination in the United Church of Canada. She served as a prison chaplain for 10 years and was appointed to Malvern Emmanuel United Church in Scarborough, Ontario, just a few years before she was diagnosed with the liver cancer that took her life at the age of 38.
Dunstan received her formal musical education from Sister St. Gregory at St. Joseph’s convent. Growing up on the evangelical side of the United Church of Canada, she found her musical education at a Catholic convent expanded her spiritual as well as musical horizons. It was in the Catholic liturgy in the 1970s that she sang the folk music of Ray Repp and the Medical Mission Sisters. She met one of the Mission Sisters, Sister Miriam Therese Winter who taught her how to write songs based on Scripture.
A child of her time, her early songs used the folk guitar. As she noted in her collection, “Most of these songs are now under a well-deserved and merciful curtain of oblivion.” Realizing that she was not a gifted musician, she focused on writing texts. Dunstan realized that the structure of classic hymns with meter and rhyme “empowered” congregational singing. “I came to believe,” she said, “that ‘meaningful thoughts’ in sloppy form are an impediment to the people’s prayer, causing an undue focus on the work itself, rather than pointing to the worship of God.” Thus she made a “transition from guitar-strumming, meter-mangling self-indulgence to form-following, tradition-loving classicism... from 1981-1983.”
“All Who Hunger” comes directly from Dunstan’s experience at an annual conference of the Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada where she was asked to lead a session exploring her hymns. “After the conference, some of us vacationed at Folly Beach outside Charleston, S.C., where I worked out this text, wandering up and down the beach singing the tune HOLY MANNA,” she said.
All who hunger, gather gladly; holy manna is our bread.
Come from wilderness and wandering. Here, in truth, we will be fed.
You that yearn for days of fullness, all around us is our food.
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
All who hunger, never strangers; seeker, be a welcome guest.
Come from restlessness and roaming. Here, in joy, we keep the feast.
We that once were lost and scattered in communion’s love have stood.
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
All who hunger, sing together; Jesus Christ is living bread.
Come from loneliness and longing. Here, in peace, we have been led.
Blest are those who from this table live their lives in gratitude.
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.”
Franklin Ashdown is a composer and a medical doctor, and has pursued dual careers for the past three decades. Born in 1942, he was recruited to play the organ for a local congregation at age 13. He is a widely published composer of organ and choral music. A resident of Alamogordo, NM, Dr. Ashdown enjoys a full life as an internist, composer, and organist-choir director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
About the Piano Music:
Assurance Medley - Bill Wolhaver
(c.1995, Word Music)
Fanny J. Crosby (1820-1915) was born in a little cottage in New York, on Mar. 24, 1820. At six weeks old she caught a cold, and when a country doctor mistakenly diagnosed her condition and prescribed a hot mustard poultice for her inflamed eyes, her eyes were scarred and she gradually lost her eyesight until she became blind at age five. However, at age eight, she produced her first poem. "Oh, what a happy child I am, Although I cannot see! I am resolved that in this world Contented I will be." She later said that she never held any resentment for that doctor and had resolved to leave all care to yesterday. On one occasion, as a young woman, she spoke before the United States Senate and moved many Senators to tears with the recital of one of her poems, proving that blind people can be educated if they have the proper training.
Fanny’s father died when she was a year old, and after living with her own parents for several years, Fanny’s mother moved to Ridgefield, CN, when the girl was nine. She received her early instruction from her grandmother and attended local schools sporadically, then was educated for several years at the New York State School for the Blind in New York City, and following her graduation taught grammar, rhetoric, and history for eleven years at that school. During the 1850’s she began writing verses for minstrel songs. In 1858 she married Alexander Van Alstyne, a blind musician whom she had met while in school. In the 1860’s she began writing texts for gospel songs at the urging of William Batchelder Bradbury. Some of her songs identify her by her full married name, Frances Jane Van Alstyne, while others use various pseudonyms. It is said that more than any other writer, she captured the spirit if the nineteenth century American gospel song. Much of her writing was done to order, and for several years she was under contract to produce three hymns a week for Bradbury’s successor, the Biglow and Main Co.
In 1890 Fanny was living in a New York City apartment and attending the John St. Methodist Episcopal Church. She received a visit from hymn composer William James Kirkpatrick (1838-1921). Many of his melodies are well-known, including one for another of Fanny’s texts, "Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It." He had just completed a new tune (Kirkpatrick) which he felt needed suitable words. When he played the melody for her, Fanny’s face lit up, she knelt in prayer, and soon gave Kirkpatrick the lines of "He Hideth My Soul." It first appeared in The Finest of the Wheat, No. 1, which Kirkpatrick compiled with George D. Elderkin, R. R. McCabe, and John Robson Sweney in 1890. The phrase, "Rivers of pleasure I see," illustrates Fanny’s triumph over her blindness.
As a blind person, Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) faced daily insecurity, which is why she found so much comfort in the book of Psalms… and why so many of her hymns point to the security we have in God. “He Hideth My Soul” was one of her favorites of her more than 8,500 hymns. Like David in the wilderness, she sometimes felt alone and vulnerable. In the words of Scripture, she prayed, “Hide me”, and she found joy in Psalm 32:7, which says, “You are my hiding place”. But, the verse that inspired this song is actually from the book of Exodus. Seeking to know God was with the Israelites in the wilderness, Moses asked the Lord to show him His presence. God granted Moses’ request and assured him, “I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand” (Ex. 33:22).
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, a wonderful Savior to me;
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, where rivers of pleasure I see.
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, He taketh my burden away,
He holdeth me up and I shall not be moved, He giveth me strength as my day.
With numberless blessings each moment He crowns, and filled with His fullness divine,
I sing in my rapture, oh, glory to God! For such a Redeemer as mine.
When clothed with His brightness transported I rise to meet Him in clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love, I’ll shout with the millions on high.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love, and covers me there with His hand,
and covers me there with His hand.
Fanny Crosby was a lifelong Methodist and her contributions to The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) include: “Blessed Assurance,” “Close to Thee,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory.”
Phoebe Knapp (1839-1908) was a composer of music for hymns and an organist. Knapp was born in New York City. Her parents were Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer. She married Joseph Fairchild Knapp, one of the founders and the second president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and he had a pipe organ installed in their apartment. She and her husband were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. The hymn writer Fanny Crosby was also a member of that church and a friend of the Phoebe’s. She wrote over 500 hymn tunes, the most familiar being the tune now called ASSURANCE for Fanny Crosby's lyrics “Blessed Assurance”.
Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. When Knapp asked Crosby, "What do you think the tune says?", Crosby replied, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer's Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany, a magazine printed by Dr. and Mrs. W. C. Palmer.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Perfect communion, perfect delight, visions of rapture now burst on my sight.
Angels descending bring from above echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest. I in my Savior am happy and bless’d,
watching and waiting, looking above, filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.
Bill Wolaver received his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Oklahoma City University. He is a prolific and renowned composer and arranger in Nashville, TN, working with multiple publishing companies. He and his wife, Robin, have been involved with Christian music for over 20 years, with songs, musicals, and arrangements published by a number of leading Christian publishers. Together, they composed Make His Praise Glorious, recorded by Sandi Patty and nominated for Dove Award for 'Song of the Year.' In addition, they have received an ASCAP Award for 'Inspirational Song of the Year.' He is also the pianist/composer/arranger for the Annie Moses Band. He offers numerous arrangements and compositions at ManAlivePublishing.com.
About the Choral Music:
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot/Swing Down Chariot - Steven Taylor
(c.1989, Meadowgreen Music Co)
“Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is among the most treasured and widely recognized African American spirituals. It was placed in the National Archives by the Library of Congress and identified as one of the “Songs of the Century” by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. It was first recorded by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1909. But while the spiritual’s music and lyrics are widely known, the song’s history is a bit cloudy. According to many accounts, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” was one of the spirituals born from the experience of slaves in the first decades of the 19th century. Composed by unknown slaves over time and passed orally from community to community, the song allegedly voiced slaves’ hopes that ultimately they would find comfort in a heavenly home.
Yet some music historians have added another layer to this account of the song’s origins. They have argued that “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” was one of the spirituals that conveyed a secret meaning to slaves. Slave spirituals did a lot more than offer a promise of eventual redemption; they also offered specific strategies needed to escape. For example, “Wade in the Water” taught runaway slaves how to throw off the bloodhounds sent to track them down. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” provided slaves with an elaborate coded map that would lead them to the North and freedom: the refrain told them to keep their eye on the Big Dipper (the drinking gourd) as the stars marking the edge of its cup pointed to Polaris, the North Star. According to these historians, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” was another in this collection of coded spirituals. In fact, according to some, it was one of Harriet Tubman’s favorites. The heroic conductor on the Underground Railroad made her own escape to freedom in 1849. She returned south the next year to lead her sister and her two children north. Over the next ten years, she made another 18 trips into slave states and escorted an estimated 300 slaves to freedom. Legend has it that slaves sang “Swing low sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home” to announce that Tubman or another “conductor” would be arriving soon to lead them to freedom.
"Swing Down Sweet Chariot" (sometimes "Swing Down, Ezekiel" or "Swing Down Chariot") is an American spiritual song. It tells the story of Ezekiel's vision of the chariot. The title and lyrics are very similar to the spiritual song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", but the songs are distinct. The chariot was a frequent image in the old 19th and early 20th century spirituals; some of the songs are related and some are not (of course, no authors are known). The Fisk Jubilee Singers were just one of the early groups that sang the song (their choral organization goes back to the 1870s; that of the Hampton Institute started almost as early and they are only the two best known of the early groups singing spirituals). it's very likely that "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" was inspired by the traditional "Swing Low" Spiritual. "Low Down Chariot" may be the earliest title for the song that became "Swing Down Sweet Chariot". "Low Down" probably means "lower down" as in "Fly down lower."
Steven V. Taylor is an 12-time Dove Award-winning producer, arranger, and songwriter and has been involved in the development of some of Christian music’s most successful artists. Steven V. has also won Producer of the Year by the Gospel Music Association. He is known for his unique insight and ability to help artists, groups, churches, colleges, and ministries everywhere achieve their highest level of performance.
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Well, I looked over Jordon, and what did I see coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels, coming after me, coming for to carry me home.
Ah, swing low, swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing down chariot, stop and let me ride, swing down chariot, stop and let me ride,
Rock me Lord, Rock me Lord, calm and easy, I’ve gotta home on the other side.
Swing down, chariot, stop and let me ride, swing down chariot stop and let me ride,
Rock me Lord, rock me Lord, call and easy, I’ve got a home on the other side.
Swing down, chariot, let me ride, swing down chariot, let me ride,
Rock me Lord, rocke me Lord, calm and easy, I’ve gotta home on the other side.
Swing down chariot, stop and let me ride, swing down chariot, stop and let me ride,
Rock me, Lord, rock me, rock me, Lord, rock me, Lord.
I’ve gotta home on the other side.
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home,
swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Swing down chariot, rock me Lord.
Swing down chariot, rock me Lord.
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me,
Swing down, chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Coming to carry me home.
Peace I Leave with You - Matthew Glandorf
(c.1993, Randall M. Egan)
“Peace I Leave with You” is a text from John 14:27, which has been set by many composers. Matthew Glandorf is active as a conductor, composer, church musician, and educator. He was raised in Germany, where he received early instruction at the organ of Bremen Cathedral with Wolfgang Baumgratz. At age sixteen he entered the Curtis Institute of Music. He pursued graduate studie at the Manhattan School of Music. In 2004 he was appointed artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, and in 2008 he became the artistic director of the Bach Festival of Philadelphia. He has served as director of music for many Philadelphia churches, including Old St. Joseph’s, Old Pine Street Presbyterian, and Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion. Mr. Glandorf joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1995. He has also served on the faculties of Swarthmore College and Westminster Choir College.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give unto you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give unto you.
About the Hymns:
My Hope is Built
Edward Mote (1797-1874) falls into the rare category of hymn writers who grew up without religious training and whose parents were pub owners. He was apprenticed at a young age by his parents to a cabinetmaker, but found faith when he heard the preaching of John Hyatt at the Tottenham Court Road Chapel in London at age 15. Living in Southwark near London, he established a successful cabinet-making enterprise and became a Baptist minister in 1852, at 55 years of age. He ministered for 21 years at Strict Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex.
Singing hymns was of great interest to him. The master cabinetmaker became a prolific hymn writer, composing more than 100 hymns. The hymn "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" was published anonymously in several hymn collections before first being attributed to Edward Mote in a collection of approximately 100 of his hymns published in 1837 under the title Hymns of Praise, A New Selection of Gospel Hymns, Combining All the Excellencies of our Spiritual Poets, with Many Originals. Hymnologists note that this is the first time the now common term “gospel hymn” appears. Mote's original title was "The Immutable Basis for a Sinner's Hope" in this collection. The refrain of "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" refers to the Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders and builds around the metaphor of Christ as a rock with a firm basis (1 Corinthians 10:4).
The Sunday school hymn writer William B. Bradbury composed SOLID ROCK in 1863 for Edward Mote's "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less." The tune name derives from that song's refrain: "On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. . . .” Bradbury published SOLID ROCK in his 1864 children's collection The Golden Censor.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
In ev’ry rough and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the vale.
When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.
Not earth, nor hell, my soul can move; I rest upon unchanging love.
I trust his righteous character, his counsel, promise, and his pow’r.
When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in him be found,
dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
(c. 1951, Hope Publishing)
A native of the small Kentucky town of Franklin, Thomas Obediah Chisholm (1866-1960) was born in a log cabin. He lacked formal education. Nevertheless, he became a teacher at age sixteen and the associate editor of his hometown weekly newspaper, the “Franklin Advocate”, at age twenty-one. Though he was ordained a Methodist minister in 1903, he served only a single, brief appointment at Scottsville, Kentucky, due to ill health. He wrote more than 1200 poems, 800 of which were published. They often appeared in religious periodicals such as the “Sunday School Times”, “Moody Monthly”, and “Alliance Weekly”. Many of these were set to music.
Chisholm had sent a number of his poems to the Rev. William H. Runyan (1870-1957), a musician with the Moody Bible Institute and one of the editors of Hope Publishing Company in Chicago. The tune FAITHFULNESS was written in Baldwin, Kansas, in 1923, and was first published in my private song pamphlets." A phrase in Lamentations 3:22-23 provides a basis for the refrain: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
Twenty years later Runyan wrote:
Mr. Chisholm and I were devoted co-workers, and I wrote harmonies to some 20 or 25 of his poems. This particular poem held such
an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carryover its message in a worthy way, and the subsequent history of its use indicates that God answers prayer.
Showing early musical promise, Runyan was a substitute church organist by the age of twelve. He became a Methodist minister in 1891 and served several churches in Kansas but turned to evangelism in 1903; he worked for the Central Methodist Conference for the next twenty years. Following that service, Runyan became pastor at the Federated Church at John Brown University, Sulphur Springs [sic: Siloam Springs], Arkansas. Editor of Christian Workers Magazine, he also served the Moody Bible Institute and was an editor for Hope Publishing Company until his retirement in 1948. Runyan wrote a number of hymn texts, gospel songs, and hymn tunes. "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" became an unofficial school hymn at Moody Bible Institute.
George Beverly Shea (1909-2013), the famous Canadian-born singer of the Billy Graham Crusades, introduced this hymn to those attending the evangelistic meetings in Great Britain in 1954. It immediately became a favorite. This hymn appeared in many evangelical hymnals and song collections but was not chosen for an official Methodist hymnal until The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), even though the author was a Methodist. It was a very popular hymn of the former Evangelical United Brethren Church and had been included in their hymnals.
According to Carlton Young, "Great is thy faithfulness" was second only to "In the garden" as the most requested hymn for inclusion in The United Methodist Hymnal. A survey conducted in 2000 by Dean McIntyre, Director of Music Resources, General Board of Discipleship, revealed that "Great is thy faithfulness" remains one of the favorite hymns among United Methodists.
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father.
There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not.
As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.
Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. [Refrain]
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow;
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! [Refrain]
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
