Each week, you may find information here about the music in the worship services at Trinity United Methodist Church in Duncanville, 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.
O Worship the King - Bill Wolaver
(c.1995, Word Music)
Of Scottish ancestry, Robert Grant (1779-1838) was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where he sponsored a bill to remove civil restrictions on Jews. Grant was knighted in 1834. His hymn texts were published in the Christian Observer (1806-1815), in Elliot’s Psalms and Hymns (1835), and posthumously by his brother as Sacred Poems (1839).
Grant’s text was influenced by William Kethe’s paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns. Stanza 3 was omitted in the Psalter Hymnal.
Rather than being a paraphrase or versification, the text is a meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104, focusing on God’s creation as a testimony to his “measureless might.” More personal in tone, stanzas 4 and 5 confess the compassion of God toward his creatures and affirm with apocalyptic vision that the “ransomed creation, with glory ablaze” will join with angels to hymn its praise to God. In the last verse, Grant points to Christ as the ultimate reconciler of a broken, but still beautiful creation. An original last stanza that we no longer sing reads, “The humbler creation, though feeble their lays, with true adoration shall lisp to Thy praise.”
O worship the King all-glorious above,
O gratefully sing his power and his love:
our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,
pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.
O tell of his might and sing of his grace,
whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.
Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!
O measureless Might, unchangeable Love,
whom angels delight to worship above!
Your ransomed creation, with glory ablaze,
in true adoration shall sing to your praise!
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.
Trinity Strong - Garth Baker-Fletcher
Rev. Dr. Garth “Kasimu” Baker Fletcher (1955-2025), ordained by the American Baptist Church, was a member of the Society for the Study of Black Religion (the Society) and the American Academy of Religion. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan for music during his formative years. He received his Bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory of Music, and his Master of Divinity degree and his ThD degree from Harvard Divinity School. Garth was a founding member of the Harvard Jubilee Singers, a group that recorded both traditional spirituals and original music.
After receiving a Master of Divinity, he was ordained in the American Baptist Church. Rev. Dr. Baker Fletcher wrote in his dissertation, Somebodyness: The Theory of Dignity in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. at Harvard Divinity School and he a Doctor of Theology from the same. He taught Christian ethics at the Christian Theological Seminary of Indianapolis and Claremont School of Theology in southern California during the 1990s. In Indianapolis he served on a Governor’s Board to end unjust violence by police against African Americans. In the 2000s he taught Bible and Christian Ethics at Texas College, an HBCU, in Tyler, Texas. After retiring from teaching, he received his Masters in Sacred Music with specialization in Music Composition from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX in 2021.
Garth was the Minister of Worship at Trinity United Methodist Church, in Duncanville, TX . “Trinity Strong” was written as a celebration of the ministries of Trinity UMC, with text written by Jane Graner and Donna Burson.
Trinity, strong because we live through every obstacle,
Trinity, strong because our trials teach us to live.
Trinity, strong though we are small, our hearts are large and tall,
God uses what the world says should not be.
Calling us to serve, love, flow like a mighty stream;
Fill us Holy Spirit, in Jesus we are free;
Like the Holy Prophets, we’re crying “Be Holy!”
Great is Thy Faithfulness - Jim Martinez
(c.2019, 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!
Jim Martinez (b. 1966) is a Steinway Piano Artist and has performed/recorded with Jazz notables Lionel Hampton, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, Cheryl Bentyne (of the Manhattan Transfer), and many others. His performances have taken him from New York to Sydney, Australia. Martinez worked as pianist/musical director for Joan Rivers and Bob Newhart at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. He is the founder, Executive and Artistic Director of the Roseville Jazz Festival, which takes place annually near Sacramento, CA.
Here I Am, Lord
(c.1989, Daniel Schutte & NALR)
Dan Schutte is a native of Wisconsin, who received his education at St. Louis University with a bachelor’s degree in 1973, a master of divinity degree in 1979 at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif., and a master’s degree in 1980 at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Following graduation, Mr. Schutte joined the Jesuits and served as the director of liturgy at Marquette University (1982-1986). He entered parish ministry in Milwaukee serving as director of music at Immaculate Heart of Mary and then Our Lady of Lourdes parishes. He is currently director of music at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution, and tours extensively as a Christian concert artist. Of his many hymns, “Here I Am, Lord” is the most commonly sung.
A salient feature of Catholic renewal hymnody since the Second Vatican Council is a stirring and memorable refrain. “Here I Am, Lord” recalls immediately Isaiah 6:8: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”
An unusual attribute of this hymn is the change in point of view that the singer makes between the stanzas and the refrain. The stanzas speak from the perspective of God in the first person singular, while the refrain, though remaining in first person, is from the perspective of the singers of the hymn offering their lives to God. Each stanza reflects a paradox. The powerful God, creator of “sea and sky,” “snow and rain” and “wind and flame” is also the God who hears the “people cry,” bears the “people’s pain” and “tend[s] the poor and lame.” This is a hymn of transformation. God transforms the darkness into light in stanza one, melts “hearts of stone” with love in stanza two and nourishes the “poor and lame” with the “finest bread”—a clear Eucharistic reference. Each stanza ends with the question, “Whom shall I send?” Rhetorical questions are very common poetical devices in Christian hymnody, but this is not one of them. The refrain immediately offers the response, “Here I am, Lord.”
I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin, My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them? Whom shall I send?
I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone, Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them, Whom shall I send?
I, the Lord of wind and flame, I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them, My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide, Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them, Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart.
Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this Place
(c.1977, Lanny Wolfe Music)
Lanny Wolfe (born 1942) is a Christian songwriter who has won numerous awards. Wolfe served for a number of years as the Dean of the School of Music at Jackson Bible School, Jackson College of Ministries, but his most significant influence has been introducing black Gospel music to Pentecostal churches.
"Surely the Presence of the Lord Is in This Place" is based on Jesus promise, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst" (Matthew 18:20). It emphasizes the senses––feeling, hearing, touching, and seeing. We can feel the presence of the Lord––and hear the brush of the angel's wings––and see glory on each face. Wolfe was inspired to write this song in 1977 when a friend invited The Lanny Wolfe Trio to sing at a dedication service for a new building. "Surely the Presence" is the song that the Trio sang for that occasion.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place;
I can feel his mighty power and his grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings, I see glory on each face;
Sure the presence of the Lord is in this place.
Blessed Assurance
Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915), born in New York and died in Connecticut, wrote over 8,500 gospel hymns. In 1972, Hope Publishing Co. found over 1,000 unpublished manuscripts. Her work defined what it meant to be a successful writer of gospel hymns. By the age of six weeks, Fanny Crosby was completely blind. She entered the New York School for the Blind at age twelve. She began writing hymns and poetry at age twelve. Her collaborators in publishing gospel hymns included the most successful and popular composers of her day, including William Bradbury, William Doane, Robert Lowry, Ira Sankey, and William Kirkpatrick. Crosby used numerous pen names in publishing her songs, including: Ella Dale, Mrs. Kate Gringley and Miss Viola V. A. She married blind musician Alexander Van Alstyne, and the British most often refer to her by her married name rather than Fanny Crosby. She 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.
Refrain:
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.
A Closing Prayer - Don Besig
(c.1978, Harold Flammer, Inc.)
Don Besig was a public school music teacher for over thirty years in western New York. He taught at all levels and since his retirement has continued to serve as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator. Recognizing a need for choral music written especially for student singers and volunteer church choirs, he began composing for his own choral groups in 1960. He is also the recipient of several ASCAP Plus Awards Don is a graduate of Ithaca College and a member of Phi Mu Alpha and ASCAP. He and Nancy Price collaborate to write music and lyrics.
The time has come, O Lord, for us to leave this place.
Guide us and protect us and lead us in thy grace.
Wherever life may take us as we go our separate ways,
Help us share with others the things we've shared today.
O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing - John Carter
(c.1991, Hope Publishing)
"O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" was written by Charles Wesley, who wrote over 6,000 hymns. Wesley was suffering a bout of pleurisy in May, 1738, while he and his brother were studying under the Moravian scholar Peter Böhler in London. At the time, Wesley was plagued by extreme doubts about his faith. Taken to bed with the sickness on May 21, Wesley was attended by a group of Christians who offered him testimony and basic care, and he was deeply affected by this. He read from his Bible and found himself deeply affected by the words and at peace with God. Shortly, his strength began to return. He wrote of this experience in his journal and counted it as a renewal of his faith; when his brother John had a similar experience on the 24th, the two men met and sang a hymn Wesley had written in praise of his renewal.
One year from the experience, Wesley was taken with the urge to write another hymn, this one in commemoration of his renewal of faith. This hymn took the form of an 18-stanza poem, beginning with the opening lines “Glory to God, and praise, and love Be ever, ever given” and was published in 1740 and entitled “For the anniversary day of one's conversion”. The seventh verse, which begins, 'O for a thousand tongues to sing', and which now is invariably the first verse of a shorter hymn, recalls the words of Peter Böhler who said, “Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Him with them all.” The hymn was published first in John Wesley's A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists in 1780. It has traditionally held a place of honor as the opening hymn in Methodist hymnals ever since.
Apparently the only publication of all original eighteen stanzas was in the 1740 hymnal. Seventeen stanzas were included as number 58 in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989). The number, ordering, and wording of the text stanzas have varied in the different hymnals. The original stanza seventeen was omitted from the 1989 hymnal as being perceived as possibly racist, and stanza six includes an editorial note that it may be omitted because it may be perceived discriminatory or offensive to people who cannot hear, speak, or see. Stanza seven of the 1989 hymnal's number 5, (which is the original stanza eighteen) has also been altered, changing "With me, your chief" to "In Christ, your head." In the original language, Charles Wesley was identifying himself with Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 as "the chief of sinners.”
Lowell Mason adapted AZMON from a melody composed by Carl G. Gläser in 1828. Mason published a duple-meter version in his Modern Psalmist (1839) but changed it to triple meter in his later publications. Mason used (often obscure) biblical names for his tune titles; Azmon, a city south of Canaan, appears in Numbers 34:4-5.
Glory to God, and praise and love be ever, ever given,
by saints below and saints above, the church in earth and heaven.
On this glad day the glorious Sun of Righteousness arose;
on my benighted soul he shone and filled it with repose.
Sudden expired the legal strife, 'twas then I ceased to grieve;
my second, real, living life I then began to live.
Then with my heart I first believed, believed with faith divine,
power with the Holy Ghost received to call the Savior mine.
I felt my Lord's atoning blood close to my soul applied;
me, me he loved, the Son of God, for me, for me he died!
I found and owned his promise true, ascertained of my part,
my pardon passed in heaven I knew when written on my heart.
O for a thousand tongues to sing my dear Redeemer's praise!
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace.
My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim,
to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name.
Jesus! the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease;
'tis music in the sinner??s ears, 'tis life, and health, and peace!
He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free;
his blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me.
He speaks, and listening to his voice new life the dead receive;
the mournful, broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe.
Hear him, ye deaf, his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ;
ye blind, behold your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy.
Look unto him, ye nations, own your God, ye fallen race!
Look, and be saved through faith alone, be justified by grace!
See all your sins on Jesus laid; the Lamb of God was slain,
his soul was once an offering made for every soul of man.
Harlots and publicans and thieves, in holy triumph join!
Saved is the sinner that believes From crimes as great as mine.
Murderers and all ye hellish crew, ye sons of lust and pride,
believe the Savior died for you; for me the Savior died.
Awake from guilty nature's sleep, and Christ shall give you light;
cast all your sins into the deep, and wash the Ethiop white.
With me, your chief, you then shall know, shall feel your sins forgiven;
anticipate your heaven below and own that love is heaven.
John Carter (b. 1930) has enjoyed a long and productive writing career with many choral compositions, both sacred and secular; over sixty collections of piano works including settings of hymns and carols, and more recently original compositions for piano. He taught in public schools in Ohio and was on the faculty at Morehead State University in Kentucky. John has been a church musician since college days, and has held Minister of Music and Pastoral Musician positions in Presbyterian, Methodist, American Baptist and UCC congregations. Many of his choral works have been written in collaboration with his wife, Mary Kay Beall, and they have written numerous musicals, both for schools and drama groups, and a musical drama, “Ruth” based on the Biblical story. They have collaborated on numerous commissioned choral works for schools, churches and community choral groups. John holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and a Master of Music degree from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee.
Join us as we welcome Pastor Betty Swinners
Trinity United Methodist Church, Duncanville, Texas
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