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:
Praise and Thanksgiving - Dale Wood
(c.1986, Sacred Music Press)
Albert F. Bayly (1901-1984) wrote “Praise and Thanksgiving” to “meet the need for harvest thanksgiving hymns which remind us that we can thank God rightly only if we are ready to do [God’s] will by sharing those gifts with others, so they can rejoice with us.” It was first published in a collection printed privately by the Rodborough Tabernacle Congregational Church in Gloucester, England, called the Rodborough Hymnal (Gloucester, 1964).
Bayly was born in England and studied at St. Mary Magdalen School in Sussex, Hasting Grammar School, the Royal Dockyard School at Portsmouth, London University, and Mansfield College, Oxford. He became a Congregational minister and served a number of Congregational churches. He wrote his first hymn in 1945. It was published in 1951 in his Rejoice, O People, the BBC Hymn Book, and Congregational Praise. He prepared the librettos for three of W. L Lloyd Webber’s cantatas, and Westminster Choir College made him an honorary fellow in 1968.
BUNESSAN is a Gaelic tune that was first published (melody only) in Lachlan Macbean's Songs and Hymns of the Gael (1888) as a setting for Mary Macdonald's carol "Child in the Manger." The tune is named after Macdonald's birthplace on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. BUNESSAN is also well known as the setting for Eleanor Farjeon's "Morning Has Broken" (1931), published in many hymnals and widely popularized by Cat Stevens, who recorded an arrangement of the tune in 1971.
Praise and thanksgiving, Father, we offer,
for all things living thou madest good:
harvest of sown fields, fruits of the orchard,
hay from the mown fields, blossom and wood.
Bless thou the labour we bring to serve thee,
that with our neighbour we may be fed.
Sowing or tilling, we would work with thee;
harvesting, milling for daily bread.
Father, providing food for thy children,
thy wisdom guiding teaches us share
one with another, so that rejoicing
with us, our brother may know thy care.
Then will thy blessing reach every people;
freely confessing thy gracious hand.
Where thy will reigneth no one will hunger;
thy love sustaineth; fruitful the land.
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!”
Now Thank We All Our God - J. S. Bach/Lani Smith
(c.1992, Lorenz Publishing)
Martin Rinkart (1586-1649) was the Bishop of Eilenberg, Germany during the Thirty Years’ War. Since Eilenberg was a walled city, it became a place of refuge for fugitives of the war, and also a place of famine and disease due to overcrowding. In 1637, at the height of their misery, Rinkart was the only clergyman left in the city who could perform the 40 or 50 daily burial services, one of which was for his wife. The city was sacked three times by invaders. During this time, Rinkart managed to write 7 dramas and 66 hymns. The hymn “Nun danket alle Gott” was originally titled “Tisch-Gebetlein” (a little prayer before the meal). This humble prayer of thanksgiving is laid out simply and beautifully in the first verse. This verse of thanks is followed by a verse asking for strength in time of trial and a doxology. The tune, “Nun Danket” is named for Rinkart's text, has been associated with it ever since they were published together by Johann Crüger (1598-1662) in his Praxis Pietatis Melica (1647).
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom the world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,
To keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills in this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
The Son and Spirit blest, who reign in highest heaven
The one eternal God, whom heaven and earth adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
Lani Smith (1934-2015) is an organist best known for his church music compositions. He has been composing for nearly fifty years, and his compositions include choral, organ and piano pieces. He is a regular contributor to the Lorenz Corporation’s keyboard magazines The Church Pianist, The Organist, The Organ Portfolio, and The Sacred Organ Journal, as well as the choral magazines The SAB Choir and The Volunteer Choir. The grandson of Edmund Lorenz, he served as an editor, composer, and arranger on the Lorenz Publishing editorial staff between 1967 and 1982. During this time, he received composing and arranging credits for over 1000 works.
Smith has made an organ arrangement of J. S. Bach’s Nun Danket alle Gott from Cantata No. 79.
About the Choral Music:
A Gladsome Hymn of Praise - Austin Lovelace
(c.1964, Harold Flammer)
A hymn which encourages us to praise God for His mighty acts and His excellent greatness is "A Joyful Song." The text was written by Ambrose Nichols Blatchford (1842-1876) at Plymouth, England. After receiving his BA degree from London University, he studied for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester New College, in London. In 1866, he became assistant to William James, minister of Lewin’s Mead Meeting in Bristol, and upon James’s death became sole minister there. Most of his hymns, including this one, were produced in 1876 for the Sunday school anniversary services at Lewin’s Mead Meeting, printed on fly leaves, and adapted to existing melodies. Originally published as "A Gladsome Hymn of Praise We Sing," this song’s first hymnbook appearance was in W. R. Stevenson’s School Hymnal of 1880 and set to an anonymous tune called "Canaan" with which it is found in The Mennonite Hymnal of 1969. All of Blatchford’s 56 hymns were collected in his 1897 Songs of Praise for School and Church.
The tune is from The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion, a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William “Singin’ Billy” Walker (1809-1875), first published in 1835. It contained 335 songs, went through several editions, and became one of the most popular southern tunebooks in the 19th century. In 1867 Walker claimed over 600,000 copies had been sold. Walker added an appendix of additional tunes in 1840 with a further enlargement in 1847. An 1854 revision deleted several tunes and added still more. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and shape note collections like The Sacred Harp. The roots of Southern Harmony singing, like the Sacred Harp, are found in the American colonial era, when singing schools convened to provide instruction in choral singing, especially for use in church services. This tune is set to “Babe in Bethlehem” in Southern Harmony and was written by William Walker.
Austin C. Lovelace (1919-2010) was called by many the Dean of American Church music. Lovelace got his first job as a church organist when he was 15 and went on to do workshops and recitals in 45 states and six countries. He received his A.B. from High Point College in 1939 and his M.S.M. and D.S.M. from the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1941 and 1950, respectively. He was Past President and a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Dr. Lovelace was Minister of Music Emeritus at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado. Over many years he worked at a number of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in Colorado, North Carolina, Illinois, and Nebraska. He also worked at Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C., Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He traveled widely as a Director of Music for general conferences, lecturer, and consultant. He was the organist for the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1954. He believed in cradle-to-grave music programs, fostering children, youth, and adult choirs. Known for his sense of humor, Lovelace wrote five books, including Hymns That Jesus Would Not Have Liked, which included gems he unearthed such as “When the Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-Ling for You and Not for Me”. He was a prolific writer and composer with over 800 compositions for church in print, as well as numerous articles and books on church hymnody.
Lovelace has wedded the text “A Gladsome Hymn of Praise” with the tune “Babe in Bethlehem” and added an accompaniment to create this lively Thanksgiving anthem.
A gladsome hymn of praise we sing, and thankfully we gather
to bless the love of God above, our everlasting Father.
From shades of night He calls the light, and from the sod the flower;
From every cloud His blessings break In sunshine or in shower.
Full in His sight His children stand, by His strong arm defended,
and He whose wisdom guides the world our footsteps has attended.
For nothing falls unknown to Him– or care or joy or sorrow;
and He, whose mercy ruled the past, Will be our stay tomorrow.
Then praise the Lord with one accord, To His great name give glory;
And of His never changing love, Repeat the wondrous story!
In Him rejoice with heart and voice, Whose glory fadeth never,
Whose providence is our defence, who lives and loves forever.
About the Hymns:
We Gather Together
"We Gather Together" is a Christian hymn of Dutch origin written in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius as "Wilt heden nu treden" to celebrate the Dutch victory over Spanish forces in the Battle of Turnhout. At the time the hymn was written, the Dutch were engaged in a war of national liberation against the Catholic King Philip II of Spain. “Wilt heden nu treden” resonated because under the Spanish King, Dutch Protestants were forbidden to gather for worship. The hymn first appeared in print in a 1626 collection of Dutch patriotic songs, Nederlandtsch Gedencklanck. The hymn is customarily performed to a tune known as “Kremser”, from Eduard Kremser's 1877 score arrangement and lyric translation of “Wilt Heden Nu Treden” into Latin and German. The modern English text was written by Theodore Baker in 1894. “We Gather Together” first appeared in an American hymnal in 1903. It had retained popularity among the Dutch, and when the Dutch Reformed Church in North America decided in 1937 to abandon the policy that they had brought with them to the New World in the 17th century of singing only psalms and add hymns to the church service, "We Gather Together" was chosen as the first hymn in the first hymnal. The hymn steadily gained popularity, especially in services of Thanksgiving on such occasions as town and college centennial celebrations. The "big break" came in 1935 when it was included in the national hymnal of the Methodist-Episcopal Church. This hymn is often sung at American churches the day before Thanksgiving.
The tune KREMSER owes its origin to a sixteenth-century Dutch folk song "Ey, wilder den wilt." Later the tune was combined with the Dutch patriotic hymn 'Wilt heden nu treden" in Adrianus Valerius's Nederlandtsch Gedenckclanck [sic: Nederlandtsche Gedenckclank] published posthumously in 1626. 'Wilt heden nu treden," which celebrated Dutch freedom from Spanish rule, was always popular in the Netherlands, but gained international popularity through an arrangement by Eduard Kremser in his Sechs Altniederlandische Volkslieder (1877) for men's voices. This collection of six songs in German translation from Valerius's anthology was the source of the older English text, 'We Gather Together."
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be;
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Now Thank We All Our God
“Now thank we all our God,” is a popular thanksgiving hymn that comes from a place of strife and struggle during the seventeenth century. Although once thought to be written in celebration at the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, the hymn was first published in 1636. The hymn was written in German by archdeacon Martin Rinckart in Eilenburg, Germany. His pastoral service coincided with the Thirty Years’ War, when Eilenburg was under great pressure from refugees.
In 1637, a plague struck Eilenburg, killing members of the city council, other pastors, and Rinckart’s wife, Christine. The pastoral responsibilities of the town were laid entirely on Rinckart’s shoulders. During this time, he officiated at over four thousand funerals for those who had died from the plague. He took over duties for other parishes and became a point of guidance for the civic leaders who survived the plague. An extreme famine followed. As people lined the streets looking for food, Rinckart helped organize emergency assistance for the town and gave food to those who needed it. God always provided enough food for the Rinckart family to live. This hymn had previously been written as a mealtime prayer for Rinckart’s family.
Two years after the plague initially struck, Swedish soldiers marched to Eilenburg demanding payment of 30,000 thalers (an immense sum) to keep the city safe. Rinckart pleaded with the officers, knowing that the townspeople barely had enough for themselves, much less to keep their city. When the plea was refused, he gathered the people together to sing and pray before the soldiers. The soldiers were so moved that they reduced their demands to only 2,000 thalers.
Throughout these events, Rinckart believed that God would provide for himself and the people. He wore a ring inscribed with the word MVSICA, abbreviating the sentence Mein Vertrauen Steht In Christo Allein (‘my trust is in Christ alone’). Without question, Rinckart retained a trusting spirit in his Lord and in the certainty of His blessings. His hymn ‘Nun danket alle Gott’ demonstrates this unwavering trust.
This hymn is based on a passage from the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus: “And now bless the God of all. …" Luther’s German translation of the beginning of this passage reads: “Nun danket alle Gott, der groβe Dinge tut an allen Enden, der uns von Mutterleib. …” This portion is transferred nearly word for word into Rinckart’s first stanza.
Goodness of God - Jenn Johnson, Ed Cash, Jason Ingram, Ben Fielding, and Brian Johnson
(c.2018, Alletrop Music/Shout! Music Publishing Australia/Fellow Ships Music/So Essential Tunes/Bethel Music Publishing)
Jennifer "Jenn" Johnson (b.1982) is an American Christian worship singer, songwriter and worship pastor. She is a co-founding member of Bethel Music, and is one-half of the husband-and-wife worship duo Brian and Jenn Johnson. She is also a senior worship pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and a Senior Overseer of WorshipU, an online school of worship sponsored by Bethel.
The story behind Bethel Music's "Goodness of God" centers on Jenn Johnson's personal experience of adopting her fourth child, Ryder Moses.
Johnson related this story: “We had just gotten home from our adoption of our son, Ryder. He was a gift that we never saw coming. We have three kids already. We thought we were done having children. Brian and I were always open to adoption. But, out of the blue, we just felt like the Lord say to us, 'I have this for you if you want this--like a gift. I have a present for you." We knew adoption was the Lord's plan for us; to have a baby again when you've been out of baby season for eight years was such a blessing. Darlene Zschech, who had been with us, told us the translation of the verse 'Here I am, send me' from Isaiah 6:8 says, 'my answer is yes before you even ask.' I was so struck with that phrase. When we had the chance to adopt, I felt myself saying yes before I was even asked. Within the next year, we were matched up. And, we brought our new son home to our family. During the adoption process, I found myself driving on a long country road. I was just singing to the Lord when I recorded a song on my phone about the "faithfulness" and "kindness of God." I wrote and sang most of "Goodness of God" as an overflow of my heart at that moment. That led to finishing and recording this song with Ed Cash, Jason Ingram, and Ben Fielding.”
This unplanned recording session became the foundation for the song, which expresses gratitude for God's unwavering presence and goodness through life's challenges and joys.
I love You, Lord. For Your mercy never failed me.
All my days I've been held in Your hands.
From the moment that I wake up Until I lay my head,
Oh, I will sing Of the goodness of God.
And all my life You have been faithful;
And all my life You have been so, so good.
With every breath That I am able,
Oh, I will sing Of the goodness of God.
I love Your voice, You have led me through the fire.
And in darkest night You are close like no other.
I've known You as a Father; I’ve known You as a Friend.
And I have lived In the goodness of God, yeah.
'Cause Your goodness Is running after, It's running after me;
Your goodness is running after, It’s running after me.
With my life laid down, I’m surrendered now.
I give You everything, ’Cause Your goodness
Is running after, It’s running after me, oh.
Deep Peace – Benjamin Harlan
(c.1998, Hal Leonard Corp.)
Dr. Benjamin Harlan has set this traditional Gaelic text. Harlan is a Professor of Church Music at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is an internationally known arranger and composer of choral, keyboard and handbell works. He has received awards from ASCAP annually since 1990. Dr. Harlan is a member of ASCAP, American Choral Directors Association and the Southern Baptist Church Music Conference.
Deep peace of the running wave to you, Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace, deep peace, deep peace of the Father’s love to you.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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