Sunday, June 29, 2025

 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:

Postlude - Johann Baptist Cramer

(c.1960, Carl Fischer)

Johann (sometimes John) Baptist Cramer (1771-1858) was an English pianist, composer and music publisher of German origin, born in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and conductor, one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1818, Cramer was a founding member of the Regent's Harmonic Institution, a music publishing firm established with the intent of raising funds for the Royal Philharmonic Society and its restoration of the Argyll Rooms. He later established his own musical instrument manufacturing and music publishing firm, Cramer & Co. in 1824. It was located at 201 Regent Street.  He ended his personal involvement in the company at the end of 1833, although it retained his name.

About the Piano Music:

Simple Prayer - Ed Bolduc

(c.2000, Wold Library Publications)

Ed Bolduc is Project Editor with the World Library division of GIA. Ed is proud to have helped develop the WLP Voices as One music series. In addition to his editing duties, he is a composer, arranger, and recording producer of liturgical and instrumental music. Since 1992, he has served the Catholic Church of Saint Ann in Marietta, Georgia where he is currently the music director.

About the Choral Music:

Amazing Grace – John Coates

(c.1971, Shawnee Press)

"Amazing Grace" was written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807).  With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.

Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was drafted into the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. However, he continued his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian theology.

Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It was first printed in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States however, "Amazing Grace" was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named "New Britain" to which it is most frequently sung today.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;

‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace wil lead me home.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.

A fixture at the Deer Head Inn in Pennsylvania's Delaware Water Gap for over 25 years, John Coates, Jr. (b. 1938) has been creating worthy music for several decades in general obscurity. He started playing piano quite young, studied at Mannes College of Music and the Dalcroze School of Music, and thought seriously of becoming a concert pianist. But after he discovered jazz, he changed his direction. In 1955, at the age of 17, Coates recorded a set for Savoy (Portrait), and toured with Charlie Ventura from 1956 to 1958. After graduating from Rutgers in 1962, he worked for a music publisher in Delaware Water Gap as a composer/arranger and started performing regularly at the Deer Head Inn. 

About the Hymns:

How Firm a Foundation

The authorship of “How Firm a Foundation” is one of the great hymnological mysteries. When John Rippon, pastor of Carter Lane Baptist Church in London, published A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors in 1787, the attribution for this hymn appeared only as “K—.” Hymnologist William Reynolds notes that the 1822 edition designated the author as “Kn,” and the 1835 edition of the collection indicated “Keen.” Finally, an 1844 edition ascribed authorship to “Kirkham.” Robert Keene (or Keen), a close friend of Rippon’s, was the song leader at the Carter Lane Church from 1776-1793. Mr. Reynolds believes that Keene assisted Rippon in preparing the compilation. But no hymn in the early editions appears to have been written by Keene. Six tunes bear the attribution “R. Keene” or “Keene,” and logic would dictate that if Keene had written the text, this would have also been clearly indicated. It is safe to say that compilers of collections in the 18th and 19th century did not take the same care to assign authorship as we have come to expect in modern hymnals. 

We know that Rippon’s Selection was very popular, with 11 editions published in England and one in the U.S. (1820) before his death in 1836.  “How firm a foundation” was sung frequently in both the North and the South before the Civil War. Mr. Reynolds notes that it was a favorite hymn of Theodore Roosevelt, and that Andrew Jackson requested it be sung at his deathbed, and that Robert E. Lee asked it be sung at his funeral. 

The anonymous folk tune FOUNDATION is an American contribution to the hymn that first appears with the text in Joseph Fund’s 1832 Genuine Church Music under the tune name PROTECTION. Hymnology scholar Harry Eskew has concluded that PROTECTION was a new tune and not previously published. The composer remains unknown. The tune appears in other famous American 19th-century collections such as The Sacred Harp(1844) and Southern Harmony (1854) as BELLEVUE with some melodic variations and with changes in harmony, but R.M. McIntosh’s Tabor: or, the Richmond Collection of Sacred Music (1866) provides us the present form found in most Baptist and Methodist hymnals.

Originally written with seven four-line stanzas, five are included in The United Methodist Hymnal with only one small alteration. Much of the hymn’s text is straight from The Bible, such as Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 43:2, 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Hebrews 13:5.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 

Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said, 

You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Be Still My Soul

(c.1961, Presbyterian Board of Christian Education)

Little is known about the author of this hymn.  Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel was born in 1697.  The date of her death is unknown.  Some hymnologists suggest that she may have become a Lutheran nun.  We know her as the author of "Stille, mein Wille; dein Jesus hilft siegen" published in a collection entitled Neue Sammlung geistlicher Lieder (A new collection of spiritual songs) in 1752.  This text appears at the time of German pietism, similar in spirit in many regards to the Wesleyan revival in England of the same era.  Philipp Jacob Spener (1635-1705) led the German pietistic movement.  Though not a hymn writer himself, he inspired a revival in German hymnody characterized by faithfulness to Scripture, personal experience, and deep emotional expression.  Katharina von Schlegel is thought to be the leading female hymn writer of this period.

The hymn comes to us via a translation by Jane L. Borthwick (1813-1897), a member of the Free Church of Scotland.  Borthwick was second only to Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) in bringing the riches of German hymn heritage to the English language.  Her translation included five of the original six stanzas, appearing in Hymns from the Land of Luther, second series (1855).  The melody comes from the symphonic tone poem “Finlandia, Op. 26”,  by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).  David Evans (1874-1948), a Welsh organist-choirmaster, matched the translation with the tune for the Revised Church Hymnary  (1927). It was brought to the United States when it was used in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. for The Hymnal (1933).

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

May God Bless and Keep You - Jim Strathdee

(c.1994, Desert Flower Music)

Internationally known artists, Jim and Jean Strathdee sing with thousands of people each year as they offer their music in concerts, worship, conferences, reteats, and workshops.  Most often they travel throughout the United States and Canada, but over the 40 year span of their ministry they have shared their music in India, New Zealand, Cuba, and Central America.  Their music spans a diversity of sound and style and includes use of guitar, piano, mandolin, harmonica, African drums, and Native American flute. They see music as an agent of transformation where ecumenical and inter-faith communities come together to make a stand for positive change. Jim and Jean have served on the staff of United Methodist churches in southern and northern California and Hawaii.  They have written hundreds of hymns, songs, and anthems.

May God bless and keep you, 

May God's loving face now shine on you and be gracious, gracious, Amen.

live stream channel

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus

Sunday, June 22, 2025

 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:

March - Scotson Clark

(c.1980, Carl Fischer)

The Reverend Frederick Scotson Clark (1840-1883) was an English organist and composer. He was founder of the London Organ School and College of Music.  Clark had his early music education from his mother, who was a pupil of Chopin. He became organist at the Regent Square Presbyterian Church at the age of fourteen. He studied at the Royal College of Music, and at the age of 18 he was teaching at the Royal Academy of Music.  In 1865 he founded the London Organ School and College of Music.  He then attended Exeter College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, graduating as Bachelor of Music.  He was appointed headmaster of St. Michael's Grammar School, Brighton.  In 1868 he was ordained deacon and he became curate at St. Michael's Grammar School, Brighton. He was chosen to represent English organists at the Paris Exposition of 1878, where he won a gold award.  Clark composed much organ music, church vocal music, songs, characteristic pieces for piano and music for harmonium

About the Piano Music:

Bunessan Variations - Ivan Burnett, Jr

(public domain)

"Morning Has Broken" was first published in 1931 in Songs of Praise. It was written by English author Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) and  set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune known as BUNESSAN.  In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon had been "asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune". A slight variation on the original hymn, also written by Eleanor Farjeon, can be found in the form of a poem contributed to the anthology Children's Bells, under Farjeon's new title, "A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring)", published by Oxford University Press in 1957. English pop musician and folk singer Cat Stevens (known as Yusuf Islam since 1978) included a version on his 1971 album “Teaser and the Firecat”. The song became identified with Stevens when it reached number six on the US “Billboard” Hot 100 and number one on the US easy listening chart in 1972. 

Farjeon was born in London, England.  She came from a literary family and was an author of children’s stories and plays, among numerous other literary pursuits.  Known as ‘Nellie’ to her immediate family, she was a sickly child who suffered from poor eyesight and educated at home.  Her father encouraged her to write from the age of five.  She eventually earned a living as a journalist, broadcaster, writing poetry and stories and counted among her friends the celebrated D H Lawrence and Walter de la Mare.  Farjeon never married but had two long term relationships.  First with an English teacher, George Earle, and after his death with the actor, Denys Blakelock.   In 1951, she converted to become a Roman Catholic.  She won numerous literary awards during her lifetime.  The Children’s Book Circle, a society of publishers, present the Eleanor Farjeon Award annually to individuals or organizations whose commitment and contribution to children’s books is deemed to be outstanding.

Sweet as dew and drenched in sunlight,  Farjeon’s lyrics are built, surprisingly, on verses found in The Book of Lamentations, written, it’s widely believed, by Jeremiah, the grieving, raging, weeping prophet. In this book of sorrows, the despairing observer lists all that is wrong with the world around him: illness, exile, hunger and misery, crime, ravage and ruin.  The list sounds familiar: check out today’s news. Is there nothing new under the sun?

But, in the middle of this inventory of woe (Lamentations 3:22-23), the weeping prophet waves away clouds of doom and gloom, steps into the sunshine, and startles us with joy. Jeremiah affirms his trust in God, whose mercies are “new every morning,” and proclaims, “Great is Thy faithfulness!” These exclamations of praise arise from a litany of despair.

Knowing that this refreshing and gentle hymn was inspired by verses in Lamentations deepens our experience of it. We are reminded that our task is to awaken, not only to this day, but to the world around us, to be mindful of all of it — the beauty and the pain. This hymn calls us to be faithful to the whole of God’s wondrous, suffering creation.

Morning has broken like the first morning;

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.

Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning,

Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dew fall on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, Mine is the morning

Born of the One Light Eden saw play.

Praise with elation, praise every morning

God's recreation of the new day.

Ivan Burnett, Jr.  received a Bachelor’s Degree from Millsaps College and a Master of Divinity Degree from Yale University. He then served churches in Mississippi and Arizona, earned a Doctor of Ministry from the School of Theology at Claremont, CA, and in 1973 was commissioned as a Navy Chaplain. He reached the rank of Navy Captain. Duties included his being the Senior Chaplain of the USS MISSISSIPPI (CGN-40) and two other ships, including an aircraft carrier, and serving as the Senior Chaplain of MCAS, Yuma, AZ; 1st Force Service Support Group, Camp Pendleton, CA; Long Beach, Naval Station; and Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, 29 Palms, CA. Military decorations include the Navy Commendation Medal (two awards), Meritorious Service Medal (three awards), and the Legion of Merit.

Prior to entering the chaplaincy he served churches in Grenada and Clarksdale, MS, and in Scottsdale and Buckeye AZ, and was the founding pastor of a mission in Gila Bend, AZ. Since retiring as a member of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference, he has been busy composing music, teaching marriage enrichment courses, and serving on numerous church boards and agencies, including a United Methodist camp for persons with AIDS and their partners. His music has been performed in churches from Colorado and Arizona to Virginia.

About the Choral Music:

All Creation Danced in Answer - Austin Lovelace

(c.2011, E.C.Schirmer Music Company, div of ECS Publishing)

John Core (b.1951) is a music librarian at West Virginia University in Morgantown and is also a hymn text writer. He is a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a life member of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Core wrote this hymn text in 2006.

Austin Lovelace has set this text using three different tunes.  Verse 1-2 are set to an original tune by Lovelace.  Verse 3 is set to HOLY MANNA, the hymn tune originally written for "Brethren, We Have Met Together", which is one of the oldest published American folk hymns. Holy Manna is a pentatonic melody in Ionian mode. It was originally published by William Moore in Columbian Harmony, a four-note shape-note tunebook, in 1829, and is attributed to him.  Verse 4 is set to REGENT SQUARE.  Henry T. Smart composed REGENT SQUARE for the Horatius Bonar doxology "Glory be to God the Father." The tune was first published in the English Presbyterian Church's Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), of which Smart was music editor. Because the text editor of that hymnal, James Hamilton, was minister of the Regent Square Church, the "Presbyterian cathedral" of London, the tune was given this title.

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.

All creation danced in answer when God’s voice first touched the air,

and the great eternal cantor called a universe to prayer,

called to praise and to thanksgiving all that filled the space about,

sought a hymn from all things living, bid the stones themselves cry out.

Jesus gave the tune new texture, love song for a world set free,

gospel song in full, rich measure, earth’s voice, but God’s melody;

passion music, sad and somber, discord on a cross was built,

giving way to bright new timbre in the Easter morning’s lilt.

And the spirit comes, composing music made of wind and fire,

in it’s newfound tones disclosing all that heart and soul require,

forging from day’s hym and thunder, from that mixture, sweet and strong,

psalms and hymns of awe and wonder: daily life as sacred song.

Come, my friends, sing, dance in answer as God’s music fills the air,

and the great eternal cantor calls us yet to praise and prayer,

bids us join the endless singing, till all earthly song shall cease;

heaven’s voice alone goes ringing through a universe of peace.

About the Hymns:

O Word of God Incarnate

Anglican Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) is best known for one of the great All Saints Day hymns, “For all the saints who from their labors rest.” While one of the great legacies to the church from the 19th century, we actually learn more about How from his hymn on scripture, “O Word of God incarnate.”   If not a unique bishop of his time, How was certainly an anomaly. He rejected offers to serve as bishop in prestigious settings such as Manchester and Durham and instead ministered in a slum area of London, a choice that resulted in his designation as “the poor man’s bishop.” While other bishops often lived in luxurious settings and were conveyed by private coach, How lived and worked with his people, traveling by public transportation.

While many churchmen were appalled by the doctrine of evolution and the feeling that science challenged the truth of the Bible, How was much more discerning. In his 1887 sermon “The Bible and Science,” How observed that evolution included many facts and theories that were difficult to dispute, and added one could not state categorically that “[a]ll such-like speculations are straight against God’s Word and therefore utterly untrue.”  Even Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), grandfather of Aldous Huxley, and a leader in the scientific debate in England who was often known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” cites the sermon in his book, Science and the Christian Tradition (1902). According to hymnologist Albert Bailey, Huxley “says that the Bishop was one of the few people who so treated . . . religion and science that he felt he could go along with him.”

Yet at the same time, this Oxford-educated clergyman had a “high” view of Scripture as this hymn attests. This hymn in praise of the Bible is based on Psalm 119:105, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.”  Singing this text, we pray that the church, the people of God, will always be led by the Scriptures to seek Christ, to whom the Scriptures point, and to bring the good news of his Word to the nations. This text was first published in the 1867 addition to Psalms and Hymns (1854), a supplementary collection How edited with Thomas B. Morrell.

How’s 54 hymns were all written between 1858 and 1871 while he was a rector at Whittington, before becoming Suffragan Bishop of East London, and in 1888, the first Bishop of Wakefield. He once said, “A good hymn should be like a good prayer—simple, real, earnest, and reverent.” How was a modernist who studied thoughtfully the latest scientific thinking of his day and still fully embraced Scripture—a model for us over 100 years later.

MUNICH has a colorful history. Traces of it run as far back as 1593 in the Dresden, Germany, Gesangbuch in conjunction with the text 'Wir Christenleut." A version from a Meiningen Gesangbuch (1693) is still used in Lutheranism for "O Gott, du frommer Gott." Felix Mendelssohn's adaptation of that tune for the quartet "Cast Thy Burden upon the Lord" in the oratorio Elijah (1846) is the most recent step in shaping MUNICH as we find it in the Psalter Hymnal and other modern English hymnals.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1809; d. Leipzig, Germany, 1847) was the son of banker Abraham Mendelssohn and the grandson of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His Jewish family became Christian and took the Bartholdy name (name of the estate of Mendelssohn's uncle) when baptized into the Lutheran church. The children all received an excellent musical education. Mendelssohn had his first public performance at the age of nine and by the age of sixteen had written several symphonies. Profoundly influenced by J. S. Bach's music, he conducted a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 (at age 20!) – the first performance since Bach's death, thus reintroducing Bach to the world. Mendelssohn organized the Domchor in Berlin and founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music in 1843.

Traveling widely, he not only became familiar with various styles of music but also became well known himself in countries other than Germany, especially in England. He left a rich treasury of music: organ and piano works, overtures and incidental music, oratorios (including St. Paul or Elijah and choral works, and symphonies. He harmonized a number of hymn tunes himself, but hymnbook editors also arrange some of his other tunes into hymn tunes.  Given its geographical roots, we may be fairly confident that the tune is named after the German city Munich, although the city's name in German is München.

O Word of God incarnate, O Wisdom from on high,

O Truth unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky,

we praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page,

a lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.

The Church from you, dear Master, received the gift divine,

and still that light is lifted o'er all the earth to shine.

It is the chart and compass that, all life's voyage through,

mid mists and rocks and quicksands still guides, O Christ, to you.

The Scripture is a banner before God’s host unfurled;

it is a shining beacon above the darkling world.

It is the chart and compass that o’er life’s surging tide,

mid mists and rocks and quicksands, to you, O Christ, will guide.

O make your Church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold

to bear before the nations your true light, as of old.

O teach your wand'ring pilgrims by this their path to trace

till, clouds and darkness ended, they see you face to face.

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light 

(c.1975, Celebration)

Kathleen Thomerson (b. 1934) is Organist and Music Director at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas. She was born in Tennessee and grew up in Mississippi, California, and Texas. College music study was at the Universities of Colorado and Texas, the Flemish Royal Conservatory in Antwerp, and privately in Paris. Before retirement in Austin, she lived in Collinsville, Illinois, when her husband was a biology professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Her best-known hymn text is "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light."  It was written as a scriptural meditation and prayer. It was inspired by many Bible verses, including Genesis 1:17, Isaiah 60:19, Psalm 75:16, Psalm 139:12, Ephesians 3:17, Ephesians 5:8, Galatians 4:6, Hebrews 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:5, 2 Peter 1:19, 1 John 1:5-7, and Revelation 21:23.

I want to walk as a child of the light;  I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world;
The star of my life is Jesus.

    I want to see the brightness of God. I want to look at Jesus.

    Clear Sun of Righteousness, shine on my path,

    and show me the way to the Father.

    I’m looking for the coming of Christ. I want to be with Jesus.

    When we have run with patience the race,

    we shall know the joy of Jesus.

    In him there is no darkness at all;
    The night and the day are both alike.
    The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
    Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

 

May God Bless and Keep You - Jim Strathdee

(c.1994, Desert Flower Music)

Internationally known artists, Jim and Jean Strathdee sing with thousands of people each year as they offer their music in concerts, worship, conferences, reteats, and workshops.  Most often they travel throughout the United States and Canada, but over the 40 year span of their ministry they have shared their music in India, New Zealand, Cuba, and Central America.  Their music spans a diversity of sound and style and includes use of guitar, piano, mandolin, harmonica, African drums, and Native American flute. They see music as an agent of transformation where ecumenical and inter-faith communities come together to make a stand for positive change. Jim and Jean have served on the staff of United Methodist churches in southern and northern California and Hawaii.  They have written hundreds of hymns, songs, and anthems.

May God bless and keep you, 

May God's loving face now shine on you and be gracious, gracious, Amen.

live stream channel

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus

.