This is the first of what will be a series of posts this summer. Every week for the next 7 weeks the Servant Church worship band, The Gentle Wolves, will be posting a recording of a song that we use at our worship gatherings. This summer’s series of songs, The Gentle Wolves Vol. 1, will not only include a recording of the song, but also a chord chart for anyone to interpret in their own context.
I, Richard, the worship leader and head Gentle Wolf, thought I would start by answering a common question that we regularly receive.
Where do we get our songs? We try our best to only use songs that are either a) public domain or, b) come from someone in our community. We like to sing old songs that still make sense to us today, therefore some hymns get a lot of play with us. From the local context, we do a lot of songs that one of our good friends Seth Woods either wrote or unearthed. We do, from time to time, try to use songs from popular artists that are not necessarily ‘worship’ songs. Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, or the Byrds would not be out of place in one of our worship gatherings. We try to avoid popular worship songs, especially modern ones.
Today’s song
Come Thou Fount
(Public Domain)
Words: Robert Robinson, 1758
Music: John Wyeth, 1813
Adapted: Richard Kentopp 2007
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Come thou fount is a classic that was one of the first hymns I adapted for a church I used to work at in Champaign, IL. Gentle Wolves regulars Kyle Robertson, Paul Price, and Molly Beaird all helped me in playing on this recording.
I have always thought this to be one of the paradigmatic hymns of the last three centuries because of its eloquence towards so many of the most complex truths of our faith: God is the source of everything good in our lives, our lives should be like songs sung by our creator, God seeks his people out and holds them in his sight, and the tendency we all have to wander from the goodness of God. These are all incredibly sophisticated ideas and incredibly simple to forget. This is why music that eloquently states these truths are so important, especially songs that God has taught us all to sing together.
Key lyric: Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.
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