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:
Aberystwyth - Gerald Near
(c.2000, Augsburg Fortress)
F. G. Burroughs (1856-1949), nee Ophelia Guyon Browning was the daughter of William Garretson Browning, a Methodist Episcopal minister, and Susan Rebecca Webb Browning. She married Thomas E. Burroughs in 1884. He died in 1904. She married Arthur Prince Adams, in 1905. He was also a Methodist minister. Her poem, "Unanswered yet" which was written in 1879, was published in the The Christian Standard in 1880 with the name F. G. Browning. She also wrote under the name of Ophelia G. Adams and Mrs. T. E. Burroughs. She was a prolific writer of religious poetry, and some hymnals still contain her texts.
"Aberystwyth" is a hymn tune composed by Joseph Parry, written in 1876 and first published in 1879 in Edward Stephen's Ail Lyfr Tonau ac Emynau (Welsh for Second Book of Tunes and Hymns). Parry was at the time the first professor and head of the new department of music at the recently founded University College Wales, Aberystwyth, now called Aberystwyth University.
Mary stood beside the tomb, Ah! her heart was broken;
Near her was the risen Lord, Yet he had not spoken:
But when Jesus gently came Close to her, and called her name,
Happy then was Mary, Happy then was Mary.
When my heart is sad with fear, And my spirit broken,
Will I know him in the dark By the same sweet token?
Will he put my fears to shame When he kindly speaks my name
As he spoke to Mary? As he spoke to Mary?
When I walk through death's dark vale, Will he then be near me?
Will my loving Saviour's voice Whisper words to cheer me?
Yes, he'll know me just the same, He will call me by my name
As he then called Mary, As he then called Mary.
Gerald Near (b. 1942) is considered one of the finest composers of church music writing today. He studied theory and composition at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. While at the University of Michigan, he also studied organ, published organ and choral music, and completed his Master's degree in orchestral conducting. In 1982, he was one of the first recipients of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. That year also saw two commissioned works for the American Guild of Organists (AGO) National Convention in Washington, D.C. The following year he moved to Dallas, where he was appointed organist/choirmaster of St. Matthew's Cathedral, later becoming Canon Precentor. In 1989, Gloriae Dei Cantores commissioned Mr. Near to compose a work for the choir, Resurrexi, based on Gregorian chant motifs. At the 1998 Denver AGO National Convention, Mary Preston premiered his organ concerto. Pamela Decker premiered his Sonata Breve (Second Sonata), written for her, at the Tucson Chapter's (AGO) Mid Winter Conclave in January of 2008. His works have been heard on NPR's A Prairie Home Companion, and his Magnificat & Nunc dimittis has been performed at the prestigious Southern Cathedrals Festival in England. The St. John's College Choir sang his St. John's Service at Sydney's Opera House. The Tucson Alumnae Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI) designated him a National Arts Associate in May of 2008.
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee - Dale Wood
(c.1993, Sacred Music Press)
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.
Dale Wood (1934-2003) was born in Glendale, California, of Finnish-Polish parentage (his father's last name was Wojtkiewiecz, which immigration authorities shortened to Wood). Dale grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from Franklin High School, where he was voted "most likely to succeed" in his class. Raised a Lutheran, his career as a composer was launched at age 13 when he won a national hymn-writing competition for the American Lutheran Church. His first choral anthem was accepted for publication one year later. His knowledge of music was immense, and his appreciation ran the gamut from classical to the Broadway stage. He admired composers from Leroy Anderson to Villa Lobos, and he was comfortably conversant with artists such as Marcel Dupré and many theatre organists. Although he attended Occidental College, he never received a college degree. In the words of his former wife, Gloria, "No, the boy didn't need any degree. He fell out of the nest with all he needed.” Dale began playing the organ in church at age 14, and he served as organist and choirmaster at Eden Lutheran Church in Riverside and The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in San Francisco.
Wood published numerous articles on worship, liturgy, and church music and was a contributing editor to the Journal of Church Music for over a decade. He lectured and conducted choral festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Northern Europe, and served as editorial consultant for several hymnals. He headed the publication committee of the Choristers Guild from 1970 to 1974. After serving as music director at the Grace Cathedral School for Boys in San Francisco from 1973 to 1974, he was appointed executive editor for The Sacred Music Press, a position he held from 1975 to 1996. He served as editor emeritus of The Sacred Music Press from 1996 until 2001. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) honored Dale Wood annually from 1967 for his work. In April 1993 Dale was honored with the prestigious Exemplar Medallion from California Lutheran University for his "more than forty years of joyful service to the church and humanity through the inspiration of his music.” Hymns and canticles composed by Dale Wood are found in the Lutheran Book of Worship, Worship II (a Roman Catholic hymnal), Seventh Day Adventist Hymnal, The Presbyterian Hymnal, The United Methodist Hymnal, the Agape Hymnal Supplement, the Moravian Book of Worship, the Chalice Hymnal, and several hymnal supplements.
Wood's musical activities were not limited to sacred music. While still a college student, he entertained as organist at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and appeared on television shows produced in Hollywood. In 1975 he was employed by the Royal Viking Line to entertain passengers on a 70-day cruise of the South Pacific and Orient. For many years Dale maintained his home and studio at The Sea Ranch, California, 115 miles north of San Francisco. It was here, amidst acres of redwood trees and gentle meadows on the rural and spectacular coastline of Northern California, that he composed most of his organ works, using a three-manual electronic theatre organ. Dale had a strong theatrical streak in him, and he maintained close ties with the American Theatre Organ Society. In his later years he collaborated with his partner, Ivan de la Garza, in designing the ATOS website.
Most of his pieces were conceived with a three-manual organ in mind but are readily adaptable to smaller instruments. He gave general suggestions for registrations, but he always trusted in the performer's own imagination ("The printed music is just a blueprint, and it is the performer's job to complete the project," he liked to say). His hymn arrangements were not all easy. Cautioned about a piece in six flats he planned to include in an upcoming volume, suggesting that some organists would find it overly challenging. He responded, "Well, then, they'll just need to practice!”
Hail Thee, Festival Day - David Cherwien
(c.1994, Summa Productions)
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c.530-509) was born at Ceneda, near Treviso. At an early age he was converted to Christianity at Aquileia. Whilst a student at Ravenna he became almost blind, and recovered his sight, as he believed miraculously, by anointing his eyes with some oil taken from a lamp that burned before the altar of St. Martin of Tours, in a church in that town. His recovery induced him to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Martin, at Tours, in 565, and that pilgrimage resulted in his spending the rest of his life in Gaul. At Poitiers he formed a romantic, though purely platonic, attachment for Queen Rhadegunda, the daughter of Bertharius, king of the Thuringians, and the wife, though separated from him, of Lothair I., or Clotaire, king of Neustria. Under the influence of Rhadegunda, who at that time lived at Poitiers, where she had founded the convent of St. Croix, Fortunatus was ordained, and ultimately, after the death of Rhadegunda in 597, became bishop of Poitiers shortly before his own death in 609.
The writings, chiefly poetical, of Fortunatus, which are still extant, are very numerous and various in kind; including the liveliest Vers de Societé and the grandest hymns; while much that he is known to have written, including a volume of Hymns for all the Festivals of the Christian Year, is lost. Of what remains may be mentioned, The Life of St. Martin of Tours, his Patron Saint, in four books, containing 2245 hexameter lines.
His contributions to hymnology must have been very considerable, as the name of his lost volume implies, but what remains to us of that character, as being certainly his work, does not comprise at most more than nine or ten compositions, and of some of these even his authorship is more than doubtful. His best known hymn is the famous "Vexilla Regis prodeunt," so familiar to us in our Church Hymnals in some English form or other, especially, perhaps, in Dr. Neale's translation, "The Royal Banners forward go." There are four hymns by Fortunatus for Christmas, one of which is given by Daniel, "Agnoscat omne saeculum," one for Lent, and one for Easter. The general character of the poetry of Venantius Fortunatus is by no means high, being distinguished neither for its classical, nor, with very rare exceptions, for its moral correctness. He represents the "last expiring effort of the Latin muse in Gaul," to retain something of the "old classical culture amid the advancing tide of barbarism." Whether we look at his style, or even his grammar and quantities, we find but too much that is open to criticism, whilst he often offends against good taste in the sentiments he enunciates. Occasionally, as we see in the "Vexilla Regis," he rises to a rugged grandeur in which he has few rivals, and some of his poems are by no means devoid of simplicity and pathos. But these are the exceptions and not the rule in his writings, and we know not how far he may have owed even these to the womanly instincts and gentler, purer influence of Rhadegunda. The best edition of his poems is F. Leo's edition of his Opera Poetica, Berlin, 1881
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed SALVE FESTA DIES as a setting for Venantius H. Fortunatus's famous text "Hail Thee, Festival Day." The tune, whose title comes from the opening words of that text, was published in The English Hymnal of 1906. Like SINE NOMINE (505), this tune is vigorous and jubilant with a rhythmic energy characteristic of Vaughan Williams's hymn tunes.
Hail thee, festival day! blest day to be hallowed forever;
day when our Lord was raised, breaking the kingdom of death.
All the fair beauty of earth, from the death of the winter arising!
Every good gift of the year now with its Master returns;
Rise from the grave now, O Lord, the author of life and creation.
Treading the pathway of death, new life you give to us all:
God the Almighty,the Lord, the Ruler of earth and the heavens,
guard us from harm without; cleanse us from evil within:
Jesus the health of the world, enlighten our minds, great Redeemer,
Son of the Father supreme, only begotten of God:
Spirit of life and of power, now flow in us, fount of our being,
light that enlightens us all, life that in all may abide:
Praise to the giver of good! O lover and author of concord,
pour out your balm on our days; order our ways in your peace:
Dr. David Cherwien (b. 1957) is currently serving as Director of Music at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN, and in 2002 was appointed Music Director for the National Lutheran Choir, also based in the Twin Cities. He has also held full time parish music positions in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Chicago, Seattle, and Berlin. He completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance, and the Master of Arts degree in Theory and Composition, both from the University of Minnesota. His undergraduate work was in organ performance and music education at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, where he was honored as distinguished alumni in the fall of 2000.
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About the Choral Music:
Lord, I Want to Be a Witness – A. L. Butler
A L. (Pete) Butler (b. 1933) is Minister of Music at First Baptist Church, Ada, Ok., and retired Professor of Church Music at Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City. He has published children and adult anthem and written a number of hymn tunes.
Lord, I want to be a witness ev’ry day in all I do and say.
Lord, I want to be a witness ev’ry hour, in the Saviour’s power.
I want to share the wondrous news of my salvation,
And tell how Jesus’ love came into my soul.
I want to spread the blessed word to ev’ry nation
And show how Christ can make a sinner man whole.
Lord, I want to be a witness today.
Here’s my soul, come on and take control.
Lord, I want to be a witness, shining bright with the heav’nly light.
Lord, I want to be a witness, leaving all for the Master’s call.
I want to live so Christ can work in those about me
And have His wondrous way within their hearts.
I want to take the word of God to those without Him,
So they can know the joyous love He imparts.
Lord, I want to be a witness,
Here’s my sould, come on and take control.
O Lord, blessed Lord, make me a witness.
About the Hymns:
In the Garden
"In the Garden" (sometimes rendered by its first line "I Come to the Garden Alone" is a gospel song written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles (1868–1946), a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at Hall-Mack publishers for 37 years. Austin Miles used the -word vision to describe the encounter that led to his writing "In the Garden." The setting was Philadelphia, where Miles was employed as an editor for a music publisher. March 1912. At home Miles sat in a window-less room of his own-—-a combination study, photo lab, and music parlor. He reached for his Bible. "It opened at my favorite chapter, John 20," he later explained. John's account of the Resurrection: two angels and then a "gardener" ask a distraught Mary Magdalene why she is crying. Because "they" have taken my Lord away. And then gardener Jesus says one word that transforms the scene: "Mary." He speaks her name, and she knows who he is. Rabboni. As Miles read the familiar story, he felt as if he were a bystander on-site. In another century, as if this were an episode of the old Walter Cronkite television series: "You Are There: At the' Garden Tomb.”
"Under the inspiration of this vision," Miles explained, he wrote "In the Garden," the words coming to mind as quickly as he could write them down. (And the text stands as first written, never being revised.) Later in the day Miles wrote the music. Miles described his activity as "reading" John 20; some would say he was praying. It's an ancient art lost on many Christians intent on studying the Scripture. One prayer pattern involves imagining oneself in a gospel scene. "You Are There." Ignatius of Loyola advised believers to "see the persons in your imagination, contemplating and meditating in detail the circumstances surrounding them, and then draw some spiritual profit from this scene." He goes on, suggesting that we imagine the sounds, smells, tastes, and touch "always endeavoring to draw some spiritual fruit from this" application of the senses. Though Austin Miles described himself as an observer in the story, he wrote "In the Garden" in first person, as if he had stepped into Mary's shoes: Jesus is walking and talking directly with him—and you and me. Calling us by name.
I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses.
He speaks and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me within my heart is ringing.
I’d stay in the garden with Him though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe His voice to me is calling.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
Spirit Song
John Wimber (1934-1997), one of the 20th century's leading charismatic pastors, is known primarily as a founder of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. He was educated at Fuller Theological Seminary and graduated from Azusa Pacific University. He served first as pastor to the Society of Friends in Yorba Linda, Calif., beginning in 1970, and then moved in 1978 to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif. In 1982, he became senior pastor of the Vineyard Fellowship in 1983.
"Spirit Song," written in 1979, is the most lasting musical contribution from Wimber. It appears widely in hymnals and is one of the more popular new hymns in The United Methodist Hymnal. The song encourages an intimate relationship between the singer and Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If the singer will surrender "all the things that hold you," the Holy Spirit will descend "like a dove... upon your life and make you whole."
Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love;
Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul.
Oh, let Him have those things that hold you, And His Spirit like a dove
Will descend upon your life and make you whole.
Oh, come and sing the song of gladness As your hearts are filled with joy;
Lift your hands in sweet surrender to His name.
Oh, give Him all your tears and sadness, Give Him all your years of pain,
And you'll enter into life in Jesus' name.
Jesus, oh, Jesus, Come and fill Your lambs;
Jesus, oh, Jesus, Come and fill Your lambs.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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