Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love
Robert Raikes is known as the “founder of the modern Sunday School”. He had a driving desire for the spiritual and social conditions of the poor illiterate children in 18th Century England. This was a time when education was reserved for the wealthy and four out of five children received no education. Child labor was also heavily exploited during this […]
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Growing up Daddy and I often performed the song Statue of Liberty for patriotic services. Recently I sung this song again and wondered about the origin of this beautiful song which combines both our patriotic and religious freedom with one another. The Statue of Liberty was written by Neil Enloe around 1974. He was a 36-year-old singer-songwriter at the time. […]
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Hail, Columbia was composed by Philip Phile in 1789. He composed the song for the first inauguration of George Washington and titled the song “The President’s March”. In 1798, Joseph Hopkinson added lyrics and the song became known as “Hail, Columbia”. During the 18th Century, Columbia was a poetic name often used to identify the United States. The song was […]
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Fanny Crosby, was a famed hymn composer in the 19th Century. She wrote over 5,500 hymns in her almost 95 years on earth. However, she spent the majority of her life blind. She became blind when she was only six weeks old from an eye infection and medical ignorance. However, she did not let her blindness hinder it. She said, […]
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In celebration of Father’s Day, I wanted to take a look at this beautiful song. Holly Dunn wrote the song in honor of her father. She stated in writing the song as a gift to her father she “tapped into a well of emotion.” She released the song in August 1986 on her album Holly Dunn. The song […]
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Margaret Clarkson traveled to northern Ontario, Canada as a young twenty-three-year-old woman to work as a school teacher in a gold-mining camp town. With her family and friend’s miles away, one can imagine the loneliness that set in. Clarkson later said, “ “I experienced deep loneliness of every kind—mental, cultural and particularly, spiritual—I found no Bible-teaching church fellowship, and only one […]
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Recently, I was discussing the hymn I’m Just a Wayfaring Stranger with my grandmother, who remembered singing the song when she was a youngster. The song is a folk song which is believed to have originated sometime in the early 19th Century. The lyrics share the journey of an individual on life’s journey, who dreams of better […]
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God Moves in a Mysterious Way was written by William Cowper. Cowper wrote a poem titled “Light Shining Out of Darkness” in 1773. he poem consist of six verses. This poem is believed to be the source for the hymn God Moves in Mysterious Ways, which was part of the opening line of he poem. He wrote the hymn to […]
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Isaac Watts wrote I Sing the Mighty Power of God as a song for children. He originally titled the song “Praise for Creation and Providence”. As a teenager, Watts complained to his father about how boring the songs of the day were. His father challenged him to write something better. Hence, a hymn writer was born. He would write at […]
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I am so thankful to have a mother who loves Jesus and taught me about him from a young age. Faith of our Mother’s was written for Mother’s Day around 1920. The hymn was written by Rev. Arthur B. Patten and modelled after the popular and well known 19th Century hymn, Faith of Our Fathers. The hymn expresses a genuine […]
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Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah was written by William Williams Pantycelyn. Williams was born in Carmarthenshire, Wales in 1717. He was the son of John and Dorothy Williams. His father was a prosperous farmer. He grew up as an Independent and Calvinist. He intended to be a doctor, but upon hearing Howell Harris preach he became a Christian. He […]
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Harry Dixon Loes, was a popular music teacher at the Moody Bible Institute for almost three decades in the early 20th Century. Harry Loes was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan on October 20, 1892. He served as music director at a variety of churches before becoming affiliated with Moody Bible Institute, which he joined in 1939. He remained until his death […]
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Pastor Louis Giglio and singer Chris Tomlin discussed writing a song which would help people who were walking through the valley of grief and loss. In a 2011 interview Chris Tomlin shared, “”We were sitting across a table at lunch one day and he said, ‘Man, I feel like there needs to be more songs for people who are really […]
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An art museum in Dusseldorf, Germany has a vivid painting on display of Christ, “wearing His crown of thorns as He stands before Pilate and the mob”. Underneath the painting, by Sternberg, are the word “This have I done for thee, what hast thou done for Me?” Francis Havergal came upon the painting while in Germany. Sources differ on whether […]
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Priscilla J. Owens was a Baltimore public school teacher for forty-nine years and often wrote hymns for children’s services. She was very involved in the Sunday School at her church. She wrote the words to this hymn for a missionary service in the Sunday School of Union Square Methodist Church. The song was “originally adapted to the chorus “Vive le […]
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Jesus told the parable of the shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep to go after the one lost sheep. {Luke 15:3-7} Elizabeth Clephane lived in Melrose, Scotland during the 19th Century. She was an invalid and wrote the hymn, based on the parable, to help children remember the truths of Jesus’s words. The text to her poem appeared in the […]
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Horatius Bonar was a Scottish minister and writer who lived throughout the majority of the 19th Century. He is described as a “most gifted and influential” minister. Bonar wrote the lyrics to I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say while he was pastoring the Presbyterian church at Kelso, Scotland, which lies along the Scottish borders. The hymn was intended to […]
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In 1898, Mrs. Lelia Morris was at a camp meeting in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. When the invitation was called, a woman “of culture and refinement” responded to the invitation. Leila Morris joined the lady, where she placed “an arm around her shoulder” and whispered, “Just now your doubting’s give o’er”. The song leader joined the two women and said […]
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George Beverly Shea’s deep baritone voice, set the mood during the Billy Graham crusades. George Beverly Shea was born on February 1, 1909 in Winchester, Ontario, Canada. He later said he gave his life to Christ at five years of age and rededicated his life at eighteen. His parents taught him to play the violin, piano and organ at a […]
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This is one instance in which the cart came before the horse. The area of Bradford, Iowa was first settled as the California Gold Rush was getting underway in the late 1840s. William Pitts, was a music teacher, traveling from Wisconsin to Iowa to visit his future wife. As the stagecoach horses were being changed, he began to wander around […]
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