Music for July 28, 2019

I am away from Good Shepherd this Sunday attending the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy. In my absence, Karen Silva will be playing the organ, and Margie VanBrackle will sing the offertory. Thanks so much to them for leading the music while I am away.

Vocal Music

• Great Is Thy Faithfulness – William M. Runyan (1870–1957), Margie VanBrackle, soprano

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Hymn 47 - On this day, the first of days (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Hymn - Through north and south (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together on our knees (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 555  - Lead on, O King eternal (LANCASHIRE)

Thomas Chisholm, the author of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and 1200 other poems was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1866, and he lived a pretty unremarkable life: he worked as a school teacher, a newspaper editor, and insurance agent, then he retired and spent his remaining days at the Methodist Home for the Aged in New Jersey. Unlike many hymns that have heart-wrenching stories behind them (for instance "It Is Well With My Soul"), "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" is inspired by the simple realization that God is at work in our lives on a daily basis. He wrote, "My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness." The hymn reminds us that God doesn't only work in dramatic or miraculous ways, but also in simple, everyday ways. It also reminds us that Jesus has never failed us in the past, so we have no reason to doubt his faithfulness in the future. --Greg Scheer, 1994

The composer, William M. Runyan, was born in Marion, New York to a Methodist minister Rev. William White Runyan and his wife Hannah Orcutt Runyan. As a youth, Runyan served as a church organist and, after being ordained as a Methodist minister at age twenty-one,  pastored various congregations in Kansas. Starting in 1915 Runyan began writing gospel songs with the encouragement of D.B. Towner of the Moody Bible Institute.

In 1923 Runyan composed the music to the song "Great is Thy Faithfulness," originally a poem by Thomas O. Chisholm, a friend and fellow Methodist minister. Later Runyan moved to Chicago where he worked with the Moody Bible Institute, and he worked as editor for Hope Publishing Company, co-editing "The Service Hymnal" with Gordon Shorney. Runyan retired from Hope in 1948.

Runyan lived for a period of his retirement in Galveston, Texas.