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:
God Who Made the Earth and Heaven - Bernard Wayne Sanders
(c.2017, Concordia Publishing House)
Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was born into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today.
This is a case of a famous tune, AR HYD Y NOS, having inspired several texts in the last two centuries. The original Welsh song, meaning “the livelong night,” was first published in Edward Jones’ Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784) as a song for solo voice and harp, with one verse each of Welsh and English words and five variations on the accompaniment. Reginald Heber was inspired by this tune to write his hymn “God that madest earth and heaven.” The story behind the hymn was relayed by D.R. Thomas, vicar of Meifod, in an article for Collections Historical and Archaeological Relating to Montgomeryshire, “Southey and Heber in Powysland,” (1881), relating to Heber and his close friend and fellow poet, Robert Southey (1774–1843):
They were the fellow-guests of the Right Hon. C.W. Williams-Wynn, for so long a period the representative of this county in the
House of Commons, and, at that time, a member of the Cabinet. … The interesting old hall at Llangedwyn, with its beautiful
surroundings, in the valley of the Tanat, was Mr. Wynn’s country residence; and here it was that Robert Southey and Reginald Heber,
while they formed a mutual friendship, enjoyed his genial hospitality, and made their first acquaintance with Powysland. … In an \
“Ode on Bishop Heber’s portrait,”…
Southey thus alludes to the occasion:
Ten years have held their course since last I looked upon that living countenance, when on Llangedwyn’s terraces we paced together
to and fro; partaking there its hospitality, we with its honoured master spent well pleased the social hours.
It was during this visit that Heber, after hearing the old Welsh air of “Ar hyd y nos” played upon the harp, and while the tune was still ringing in his ears, composed to its music his well-known Evening Hymn, “God that madest earth and heaven.”
The words were set to AR HYD Y NOS in the choir book arranged by Heber’s sister before 1822 for use at Hodnet Church, Shropshire. The rector at the time was Richard Hugh Cholmondeley (1828–1910). The current location of this MS is unknown. The hymn was eventually published, without music, in The Manchester Courier, 31 March 1827, then in his posthumous Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year (1827).
God, who made the earth and heaven, Darkness and light:
You the day for work have given, For rest the night.
May your angel guards defend us,
Slumber sweet your mercy send us,
Holy dreams and hopes attend us, All through the night.
And when morn again shall call us To run life's way,
May we still whate'er befall us, Your will obey.
From the pow'r of evil hide us,
In the narrow pathway guide us,
Never be your smile denied us All through the day.
Guard us waking, guard us sleeping, And, when we die,
May we in your mighty keeping All peaceful lie.
When the trumpet's call shall wake us,
Then, O Lord, do not forsake us,
But to reign in glory take us With you on high.
Holy Father, throned in heaven, All holy Son,
Holy Spirit freely given, Blest Three in One:
Grant us grace we now implore you,
Till we lay our crowns before you
And in worthier strains adore you While ages run.
Bernard Wayne Sanders (b. 1957) was born in DePere, Wisconsin and was educated at St. Norbert College, Wichita State University, and the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, Germany. Sanders has been an active church musician in Germany since 1974, currently serving parishes in the Tuttlingen area as music director and official diocesan organ consultant. As a composer, he has published many works and composed the awardwinning piece Ornament of Grace, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists as part of a performance by organists worldwide in 2008.
Komm, Gott Schöpfer - Flor Peeters
(c.1950, C. F. Peters Corporation)
"Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist" ("Come, God Creator, Holy Ghost") is a Lutheran hymn for Pentecost, with words written by Martin Luther based on the Latin "Veni Creator Spiritus". Luther wrote the hymn in his effort to establish German equivalents to the Latin parts of the liturgy. He derived the melody from the chant of the Latin hymn. Luther’s hymn in seven stanzas was first published in 1524.
Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, And make our hearts Your place of rest;
Come with Your grace and heav'nly aid And fill the hearts which You have made.
To You, the Counselor, we cry, To You, the gift of God Most High;
The fount of life, the fire of love, The soul's anointing from above.
In You, with graces sevenfold, We God's almighty hand behold
While You with tongues of fire proclaim To all the world His holy name.
Your light to ev'ry thought impart, And shed Your love in ev'ry heart;
The weakness of our mortal state With deathless might invigorate.
Drive far away our wily foe, And Your abiding peace bestow;
With You as our protecting guide, No evil can with us abide.
Teach us to know the Father, Son, And You, from both, as Three in One
That we Your name may ever bless And in our lives the truth confess.
Praise we the Father and Son, And Holy Spirit, with them One,
And may the Son on us bestow The gifts that from the Spirit flow!
Flor Peeters (1903-1986) was an important Belgian composer, organist and teacher. When sixteen years old, he began his studies at the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen (since moved to Leuven), which was named after the nineteenth-century organist Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens. In 1923 he became an organ teacher at the Institute; simultaneously he acquired the position of chief organist at the St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen, which he held for most of the rest of his life; As an organist and pedagogue, Peeters enjoyed great renown, giving concerts and liturgical masterclasses all over the world. He also made recordings of sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century organ music; some of these have been reissued in recent years on compact disc. Most of his own pieces (he wrote well over 100) were for organ, for choir, or for both. Peeters was created a baron by King Baudouin of Belgium in 1971.
About the Choral Music:
Come, Gracious Spirit - Alfred V. Fedak
(c.2002, St. James Music Press)
Simon Browne (1680-1732), a contemporary of Dr. Isaac Watts, was born at Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire. After studying for the Independent Ministry under the Rev. John Moore, of Bridgewater, he became pastor of an Independent charge in Portsmouth, and then, in 1716, of the Independent-Chapel in Old Jewry, London. His later years were clouded by a peculiar mental illness, through which "he imagined that God had in a gradual manner annihilated in him the thinking substance, and utterly divested him of consciousness." It is supposed that the death of a highwayman at his hands during a violent struggle, followed by that of his wife and son a short time after, had much to do in producing this sad result. Whilst thus contending that he had no power to think, he produced a work in defense of Christianity, another in defense of the Trinity, a third as an Exposition of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and a fourth in the form of a Dictionary. His publications number over 20. Of these works, he is known to hymnology through his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, in Three Books, designed as a Supplement to Dr. Watts, 1720. It contains 166 hymns, 7 doxologies, and a Preface of some historical interest. In old collections Simon Browne's hymns (all of which are from the above collection) held a prominent position, but in modern hymnals they are rarely seen. The best known and most widely used are "Come, Gracious Spirit, Heavenly Dove," "O God, on Thee we all depend," and "Lord, at Thy feet we sinners lie.”
Few hymns in the English language have been subjected to so many alterations and changes as this, which according to the author's title, concerns "The Soul giving itself up to the Conduct and Influence of the Holy Spirit.” Browne’s original text was:
"Come, Holy Spirit, heav'nly Dove, My sinful maladies remove;
Be Thou my light, be Thou my guide, O'er every thought and step preside.
"The light of truth to me display, That I may know and chuse my way;
Plant holy fear within mine heart, That I from God may ne'er depart.
“Conduct me safe, conduct me far From every sin and hurtful snare;
Lead me to God, my final rest, In His enjoyment to be blest.
"Lead me to Christ, the living way, Nor let me from his pastures stray;
Lead me to heav'n, the seat of bliss, Where pleasure in perfection is.
"Lead me to holiness, the road That I must take to dwell with God;
Lead to Thy word, that rules must give, And sure directions how to live.
"Lead me to means of grace, where I May own my wants, and seek supply;
Lead to Thyself, the spring from whence To fetch all quick'ning influence.
"Thus I, conducted still by Thee, Of God a child beloved shall be;
Here to His family pertain, Hereafter with Him ever reign.”
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.
Fedak has set a newer version of the text to the hymntune DANBY which is an English folk song tune that Ralph Vaughan Williams harmonized and set to “”Tis Winter Now” by Longfellow. The tune is named for the town where Vaughan Williams originally encountered it.
Come, Gracious spirit, heavenly Dove, with light and comfort from above;
Be thou our guardian, thou our guide o’er every thought and step preside.
The light of truth to us display, and make us know and choose thy way;
plant holy fear in every heart, that we from thee may ne’er depart.
Lead us to Christ, the living Way, nor let us from his pastures stray;
lead us to holiness, the road that we must take to dewll with God.
Lead us to heaven, that we may share fullness of joy forever there;
lead us to God, our final rest, to be with him forever blessed.
Of All the Spirit’s Gifts to Me
(c.1979, Hope Publishing)
No discussion of English language hymns in the last 30 years of the 20th century is complete without extensive reference to the hymns of Fred Pratt Green (1903-2000). A British Methodist minister, Green was born in Liverpool. Though he lived a long life, he did not begin writing hymns until his retirement from active ministry at age 65. Since he lived on for more than 30 years, he was able to make a profound impact on congregational song. The UM Hymnal includes 18 of his hymns, more that any other 20th-century hymn writer.
Often listed as one of the foremost participants in the "hymnic explosion" that began in England in the last 35 years of the 20th century -- a kind of hymn Renaissance, Green has provided the church with artistic and articulate texts that relate the current issues of the church to Scripture and liturgy. Eminent English hymnologist Erik Routley described Green as Charles Wesley's successor.
"Of All the Spirit's Gifts to Me" is characteristic of many of Green's hymns -- its language is clear, it is rooted in Scripture and it is theologically sound. According to Bernard Bailey, a British hymn scholar, the hymn was written for a United Women's Rally in Croydon, London in May 1975, and sung during the session on The Fruits of the Spirit. The hymn's scriptural context is Galatians 5:22-23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Like many fine hymns, this text is a poetic reflection, almost a sermon in song, on this Scripture. The clarity of language and cogent presentation of ideas are characteristic of Green's hymns. Every word counts and fits naturally and beautifully. Nothing is contrived.
The poet had a distinguished career in the Methodist Church in England. He considered the Anglican Church, but chose the Methodist Church because of its open welcome to Holy Communion. Green received many honors during the last years of his life. He was one of a very few English hymn writers to be honored as a Fellow of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1982. In 1977, one of Green's hymns was sung in the official order of service for the nationwide celebrations of the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. He was again honored after turning 90, when he attained the rare tribute of being honored by the queen for his services to hymn writing.
Hymns from his collections provide a substantial body of work that appears in countries around the world in a wide variety of faith traditions. Hope Publishing Co. has published three volumes of his hymns: The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green (1982), Later Hymns and Ballads and Fifty Poems (1989), and The Last Lap: A Sequence of Verse on the Theme of Old Age (1991).
Green's obituary on Oct. 24, 2000, quoted him on the subject of hymn singing: "It's such a dangerous activity... you get this glow which you can mistake for religious experience.”
The tune ES IST KEIN TAG, also known as MEYER, was written by Johann D. Meyer and first published in Geistliche Seelen-Freund, 1692.
Of all the Spirit's gifts to me, I pray that I may never cease
to take and treasure most these three: love, joy, and peace.
The Spirit shows me love's the root of every gift sent from above,
of every flower, of every fruit, that God is love.
The Spirit shows if I possess a love no evil can destroy;
however great is my distress, then this is joy.
Though what's ahead is mystery, and life itself is ours on lease,
each day the Spirit says to me, "Go forth in peace!"
We go in peace, but made aware that, in a needy world like this,
our clearest purpose is to share love, joy, and peace.
About the Hymns:
Spirit of Faith, Come Down
Exploring the hymns of Charles Wesley (1707-1788) is like examining a trove of treasures excavated from the pages of his writings. While the church has preserved many of these treasures intact within its hymnals, sometimes a single gem is lost or forgotten. When such a jewel is recovered, it provides fresh color to the hymn as newly shed light streams through it and dances across the page. One such gem is the excised third stanza of “Spirit of Faith Come Down.”
“Spirit of Faith Come Down” by Charles Wesley was first published in Hymns of Petition and Thanksgiving for the Promise of the Father (1746) and is also found in the collection Whitsunday [Pentecost] Hymns (1746). The original hymn is composed of five stanzas, though in most hymnals today, there are only four, sometimes three, stanzas. This is due to the long lasting editorial change made by John Wesley when he included the hymn in his famous Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780). As observed by Carlton Young in the Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal, John Wesley removed the original third stanza and slightly altered the second line of the original fourth stanza.
The hymn is filled with references to Scripture. Charles Wesley directly quotes both 1 Corinthians 12:3 and John 20:28 in the second stanza. His construction of this stanza makes it clear, using Scripture as the basis, that one desperately needs the Spirit to have the faith required to fully accept Jesus and redemption through him. Wesley’s theology of atonement also plays a key role in the text of this hymn, infusing the entirety of the hymn. The first stanza quickly delivers a statement of the ongoing process of redemption, pleading (possibly demanding) that the “Spirit of faith come down” to “reveal the things of God” so to “give us eyes to see who did for every sinner die, hath surely died for me.” In their Companion to Hymns and Psalms, Richard Watson and Kenneth Trickett note that Wesley often uses the expression, “Tis thine the blood to apply,” as he does in the first stanza, fifth line. This phrase is a poetic manifestation of Charles Wesley’s belief that the Spirit’s mission is to the individual person. Salvation is encountered through the Spirit and is delivered as an intimate gift, given through faith. This first stanza is a condensed teaching of Wesleyan redemption. Indeed, the entire hymn is written as a proclamation on the extraordinarily active and vital role the Spirit plays in giving, sustaining, and nurturing faith so one might believe and accept Jesus as the Redeemer.
While the hymn as we know it contains the Wesleyan standard of attention to Scripture and theological depth, the words of the original third stanza enrich the hymn as a whole and fulfill a role that stanzas currently available cannot hope to do. The text of the individual stanza as it appears in the original 1746 hymnal is as follows:
I know my Savior lives, He lives who died for me,
My inmost Soul his Voice receives Who hangs on yonder Tree:
Set forth before my Eyes Ev’n Now I see Him bleed,
And hear his Mortal Groans and Cries While suffering in my stead.
Here, in the original third stanza, is a vivid depiction of Jesus’ act of redemption and victory over death. The stanza opens with a paradox of life and death and then moves on to a brutally vivid and deeply personal vision of the crucifixion. In light of the vivid scene (known by the poetic device, hypotyposis) just painted in the original third stanza, to claim Jesus’ redemption as deeply personal gives a rather stirring and evocative opening statement. The words do not inspire a general claim or reality, but one that is intimately personal, which a person cannot help but share with the world. By omitting the third stanza, the hymn loses a key turning point in the journey through the hymn as well as a climactic follow up to the second stanza. The second stanza ends, “Thou art my Lord, my God,” and then the third stanza depicts in a shockingly graphic manner the one whom the individual is claiming as Lord and God. Stanza four then affirms that indeed, the one who is “my Lord and God…who hangs on yonder tree” truly and surely is “My dear atoning Lamb.”
The tune BEALOTH was first published in Sacred Harp, a songbook created and published by Lowell Mason and his sons in 1840.
Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South of the United States. The name is derived from The Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous and historically important tunebook printed in shape notes. The work was first published in 1844 and has reappeared in multiple editions ever since. Sacred Harp music represents one branch of an older tradition of American music that developed over the period 1770 to 1820 from roots in New England, with a significant, related development under the influence of "revival" services around the 1840s. This music was included in, and became profoundly associated with, books using the shape note style of notation popular in America in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Brothers Lowell and Timothy Mason published their own Sacred Harp in 1840 in Cincinnati. Originally from Boston, the Mason family is hardly associated with the promotion of shape-note (or “patent note”) notation—indeed, Lowell Mason would become a famously successful antagonist of shape-notes, which he derided as an obstacle to “scientific” music education. Shape-notes were flourishing in the Ohio Valley in the 1830s, and the music publishers recognized that a shape-note version of the hymnal would boost its commercial prospects. The Masons were clear that their use of shape-notes was in no way intended as an endorsement, however: the preface acknowledges that “the Sacred Harp is printed in patent notes (contrary to the wishes of the Authors) under the belief that it will prove much more acceptable to a majority of singers in the West and South.
If the notation style of both Sacred Harps is the same, the contents are dramatically different. While B. F. White’s Sacred Harp largely followed its shape-note predecessors in reprinting a broad range of early American singing-school repertoire, southern vernacular hymnody, and new compositions based on those styles, the Masons’ Sacred Harp features music by European composers and new compositions based on a European aesthetic, many by Lowell Mason himself. In fact, the Masons intended their volume to supplant the American hymnody then popular in the region—the “patent notes” would be but a minor concession if the tunebook could succeed in pushing local musical taste toward the style that the Masons favored. In the few examples of eighteenth-century American music they included, Lowell and Timothy Mason altered the harmonies to better conform to the European style they favored, eliminating parallel fifths and open chords.
Spirit of faith, come down, reveal the things of God,
and make to us the Godhead known, and witness with the blood.
'Tis thine the blood to apply and give us eyes to see,
who did for every sinner die hath surely died for me.
No one can truly say that Jesus is the Lord,
unless thou take the veil away and breathe the living Word.
Then, only then, we feel our interest in his blood,
and cry with joy unspeakable, "Thou art my Lord, my God!"
O that the world might know the all atoning Lamb!
Spirit of faith, descend and show the virtue of his name;
the grace which all may find, the saving power, impart,
and testify to humankind, and speak in every heart.
Inspire the living faith (which whosoe'er receive,
the witness in themselves they have and consciously believe),
the faith that conquers all, and doth the mountain move,
and saves whoe'er on Jesus call, and perfects them in love.
God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens
(c.1967, Hope Publishing)
Hymnody has often had difficulty keeping in step with scientific thinking. Many of our hymns on themes of the natural world imply an extension of the cosmology of the ancient world in which a three-story universe provides the basis for our assumptions. In this view, the dome of the heavens with the firmament of the stars rests upon the earth, which, in turn, is supported by the underworld resting on the pillars of the earth. This view assumes that the earth is the center of the universe. Nicolas Copernicus reoriented our understanding of the universe in the 16th century with his proof that the earth revolved around the sun. This should have changed the course of hymns, but parts of the church universal did not accept his teachings for centuries. It took the space race of the 1960s to firmly establish that we no longer could restrict our understanding of the natural creation to the three-storied universe. “God, who Stretched the Spangled Heavens,” written in 1967, was among the first hymns to employ the imagery of the space age.
Catherine Arnott Cameron (b. 1927) in New Brunswick, studied at McMaster University and the University of Southern California. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Dr. Cameron was a professor of social psychology at the University of La Verne, Calif., from 1971-1992. Hymnologist Harry Eskew interviewed Dr. Cameron, whose interest in poetry goes back to hymn singing in church at a young age. “As a child and teenager with a gift for writing poetry, I was troubled by the mismatch between words and music in some of the hymns sung in our church,” she said. “I thought that one day I might write a hymn that was a harmony of poetry and music. The hymn was written over a period of several months at a time when I was experiencing a new sense of direction, growth and creativity in my life.” It appeared first inContemporary Worship 1 (1969) and has been a staple of hymnals ever since.
The most poignant aspect of Dr. Cameron’s hymn is the paradox between stanza one and stanzas two and three. In stanza one, the author celebrates humanities’ “inventive powers” that come as a result of being made “in [God’s] likeness.” Stanza two contrasts the purposeful move into space with the void of life in “modern cities” where lonely people are often “lost to purpose and meaning, scarcely caring where they go.” Stanza three, written at the height of the Cold War, contrasts “the ecstasy of winging through untraveled realms of space” with the earth-bound reality of the power of the atom, which provides us with the choice of “life’s destruction or our most triumphant hour.” The final stanza appropriately concludes with the prayer: “Great Creator, give us guidance till our goals and yours are one.”
God, who stretched the spangled heavens, infinite in time and place,
Flung the suns in burning radiance through the silent fields of space,
We your children, in your likeness, share inventive powers with you.
Great Creator, still creating, show us what we yet may do.
Proudly rise our modern cities, stately buildings, row on row;
Yet their windows, blank, unfeeling, stare on canyoned streets below,
Where the lonely drift unnoticed in the city’s ebb and flow,
Lost to purpose and to meaning, scarcely caring where they go.
We have ventured worlds undreamed of since the childhood of our race;
Known the ecstasy of winging through untraveled realms of space;
Probed the secrets of the atom, yielding unimagined power,
Facing us with life’s destruction of our most triumphant hour.
As each far horizon beckons, may it challenge us anew,
Children of creative purpose, serving others, honoring you.
May our dreams prove rich with promise, each endeavor well begun.
Great Creator, give us guidance till our goals and yours are one.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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