Hi Everyone,
I apologize for not updating this site as frequently!
I wanted to remind everyone that we will have choir this week even though we didn’t have practice this past Sunday due to the Super Bowl. We will meet at 10:40 and rehearse briefly. Please be there a bit early so we can start right on 10:40! Here is the music for this week:
CTW: At the Name of Jesus – 168 Hymnal
Congregational: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name – 154 Hymnal
Special: My Jesus I Love Thee – #6 in Hymns for Praise and Worship (Green book)
Closing: My Tribute – 99 Hymnal
More about these songs after the break.
The lyrics of At the Name of Jesus were published in 1870 and written by Caroline M. Noel. Hymnary.org says this about her life:
The daughter of an Anglican clergyman and hymn writer, she began to write poetry in her late teens but then abandoned it until she was in her forties. During those years she suffered frequent bouts of illness and eventually became an invalid. To encourage both herself and others who were ill or incapacitated, Noel began to write devotional verse again. Her poems were collected in The Name of Jesus and Other Verses for the Sick and Lonely (1861, enlarged in 1870).
They go on to say this about the text of the hymn:
The text is based on the confession of faith that Paul quotes in Philippians 2:6-11, which may well have been an early Christian hymn. Stanza 1 announces the triumph of the ascended Christ to whom “every knee should bow” (Phil. 2: 10).
For Valentines Day this year, I wanted to find a song that had Love as a theme, but was still relevant to pre-Lenten studies. Our special for this week, My Jesus I Love Thee has very simple and straightforward words. It was written in 1862 by William Featherston when he was only 16, at the time that he became a Christian. Although he was a new believer when he wrote these words, they reveal that he had a grasp on the commitment that he was making: to follow Christ through life, until finally standing before Him in death. “If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus ’tis now.”
