Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love
We’re Marching To Zion is sometimes referred to by it’s opening line, Come We That Love the Lord. The hymn was written by Isaac Watts. Watts was an English minister, hymnwriter, theologian and logician. He wrote over 750 hymns and is known as the Father of English hymnody. Marching to Zion may have been based on Jeremiah 31:6, “Arise ye, […]
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The Solid Rock or My Hope is Built on Nothing Less was written by Edward Mote. He was a pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church in Horsham, West Essex, England. Mote was born in 1797 and trained to be a cabinet maker. At the age of 50, he entered the ministry. When offered the church building as a gift, Mote replied […]
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William Walford was a simple uneducated wood carver with a great memory. He spoke and wrote poem in his England home and shop. He was so in tune with God and scripture that he was often asked to speak at his Congregational Church and share a sermon. The word of God overflowed through him and came out in his poetry. […]
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Trusting Jesus was written by Edgar Page Stites. The music was written by Ira D. Sankey. Edgar Page Stites was a direct descendant of John Howland, one of the Mayflower passengers. Stites served in the Civil War before becoming a riverboat pilot and later a missionary to churches in South Dakota. The poem first appeared in the newspaper. The poem […]
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Praise to the Lord the Almighty is a hymn based on Joachim Neander’s German hymn “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren”, published in 1680. Neander was born in 1650 Bremen, Germany. In his youth, he lived on the wild side before attending a local service and listening to a visiting preacher. He adopted the beliefs of the Pietist […]
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Safe in the Arms of Jesus was written by Fanny Crosby. On April 30, 1868, William Howard Doan, a composer and friend of Crosby’s knocked on her door. He said, “Miss Fanny, I have exactly forty minutes before my train leaves for Cincinnati, and I must take that train.” He explained he wanted a new hymn next month when he […]
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Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home is a hymn often used as an invitational in the church. The hymn was written by Fanny Crosby and music was by George Coles Stebbins. Crosby had been blind since the age of six weeks and wrote over 8,000 songs in her lifetime. Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home first appeared in Gospel Hymns […]
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Praise Him, Praise Him, Jesus Our Blessed Redeemer is a hymn by beloved songwriter Fanny Crosby. Chester G. Allen married the melody to the lyrics written by Crosby. The hymn was first published in 1869 in the Bright Jewels songbook. This is a hymn that praises Jesus and reminds us to praise him. We are not told what inspired Crosby […]
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Robert Lowry was a composer more remembered for the more than 500 hymns he wrote instead of the sermons he preferred to give. He once stated: “Music, with me has been a side issue… I would rather preach a gospel sermon to an appreciative audience than write a hymn. I have always looked upon myself as a preacher and felt […]
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Pass Me Not O Gentle Savor is another popular hymn by prolific and beloved hymn writer Fanny Crosby. Crosby had been blind since she was six weeks old, but wrote over 8,000 songs in her lifetime. One evening, Fanny Crosby was invited to speak to a group of prisoners at the state prison and heard one of the men say […]
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I Am Thine, O Lord is another beloved hymn by Fanny Crosby. Ira Sankey shared in his book that Fanny Crosby was visiting Mr. W.H. Doane, in is Cincinnati, Ohio home. They were talking about the blessedness and nearness of God. The sun began to set that evening and the evening shadows were gathering around them, during which time someone […]
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Happy Mother’s Day! I thought this was a fitting song for the day. You Raise Me Up almost vanished into obscurity, instead of becoming the hit song we know and love today. You Raise Me Up was composed by an Irish-Norwegian duo known as Secret Garden, performers of primarily instrumental music. The music was composed by Rolf Lovland. The song […]
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Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this Place is a praise hymn from the 1970s which is still popular today. The song was written by Lanny Wolfe and inspired by Genesis 28:16, “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Lanny Wolfe is an […]
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The Doxology is a short hymn many of us that grew up in church sung during the offering. Today some churches have moved away from this tradition while others continue to maintain this tradition. So, where did the Doxology originate? Doxology is a Greek word that is described as a “short hymn of praise to God”. Today the Doxology […]
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Angels We Have Heard on High commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ found in the Gospel of Luke. The song focuses on the shepherds encounter with the angels foretelling of the birth of the newborn child. Reports say that in 129 A.D. Pope Telesphorus ordained that the “Gloria” be sung at the Christmas Eve midnight mass. The phrase became known […]
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African Americans have a rich musical history through the use of passing down stories in the guise of a song. These songs are called spirituals and the slaves often sung them in the fields, while working and in their celebrations. These songs have a feeling of “incredible majesty and haunting beauty.” Go Tell It on the Mountain originated as a […]
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This is a beautiful Christmas song that Daddy and I performed together many times. The lyrics and music were written by William H. Neidlinger in 1890. No other information is known about this beautiful Christmas carol. The song has been recorded and performed numerous times over the years by various artists. Maybe his work was inspired by the passage in […]
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Imagine traveling to the Holy Land and being inspired by the places where Jesus was born, walked, died and rose from the grave. To ride by horseback out to the fields where the shepherds attended their sheep and the angels appeared to them. That’s exactly how the lyrics for O Little Town of Bethlehem were inspired. Later the author wrote […]
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The hymn we sing today as Hark! The Herald Angels Sing has had many alterations since it originated. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing first appeared in the 1739 Hymns and Sacred Poems. This is one of the few Christmas hymns written in the 17th and early 18th Centuries, after the English Puritan’s abolished Christmas Carols for being part of a […]
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In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was most likely shocked when the parish priest asked him to write a poem for Christmas Mass. De Roquemaure was the commissioner of wines in a small French town and well known for his poetry. He was an unlikely person for the priest to ask to write this poem, in the fact that he was […]
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