Author: Eric Sayers

Our hymnals truly have some hidden gems lying within! For quite some time I’ve thought about arranging the hymn “O Thou Who Camest From Above” (#501 in the current Methodist hymnal) for the simple reason that I’ve rarely heard a more beautiful hymn tune that also happens to be coupled with a marvelous text. It’s a very Wesleyan hymn: Samuel wrote the music, Charles wrote the words, and John edited it! You would think it would be a mainstay in worship, but in my slightly more than half century on this planet, I have never heard it sung in any church service I’ve attended. When reading about it, it seems that one impediment is the 6-syllable word “inextinguishable” in the second stanza, an apparent blocker that has prevented its wider use. Indeed, this is what John attempted to fix by substituting the phrase “ever bright, undying” for the original behemoth. So in my arrangement I’ve taken John’s lead and used this rendering.

The choir at Glen Mar church will begin rehearsing the arrangement this week, and we hope to present it in worship on Oct. 20. This is also the first piece I’ve written entirely after attending Joe Martin’s Composer Symposium back in June, so perhaps we’ll all see if I learned anything…

Rehearsals are well underway for “A Celebration of Hymns” on May 18 and excitement is building! I’m so grateful that several friends from the choir at Covenant UMC have joined us to sing at the event, along with other members of the Glen Mar community. It should be a joyful noise! As a preview, the Glen Mar choir will be singing “Come, O Children” this Sunday, May 5, during worship. Please join us in person or online!

For me, and for most of adult life, the closing verses of Romans 8 have formed the core of the Christian gospel. So the idea of setting these verses (Romans 8: 31-39) to music has always been an attractive yet seemingly unachievable goal. The text is too profound, too weighty, and honestly too rhetorically complex to be trivialized in a song… or so I thought. Imagine my shock, even horror, to watch ideas form that would wrap this text in the whimsical airs of a Broadway-style show tune! I resisted the ideas at first, but what won me over in the end, I think, was the abiding sense—from years of small group study and myriads of stories from pastors—of how hard it is for us to believe that God’s grace is a free gift, and how unworthy of it so many of us feel. So the ideas became a dialog between a solo seeker, wanting to believe but full of self-doubt, and a choir that was trying, and largely failing, to be helpful. (I was somewhat reminded of Job’s “helpful” friends.) In the end, it was the text itself, the Word, the core of the gospel, that won the day.

Here’s a livestream video from March 17, 2024. I hope you enjoy!

Yesterday I led the Sanctuary Choir at Glen Mar Church in presenting “Come, O Children”, my first original choral composition. A live recording is available. The text is based on Psalm 34, a personal prayer of thanksgiving for God’s deliverance from a crisis. The music arose from my own thanksgiving after I dodged a personal crisis of my very own, and in searching for an appropriate Scripture, I soon found this beautiful Psalm that was largely unfamiliar to me. No longer! Here’s the adapted text as it appears in the piece:

Come, O children, come to me. 
I will teach you; listen to me.
Depart from evil, and do good.
Seek peace, pursue peace.

I will bless the Lord, my God, I will bless the Lord.
I will bless the Lord, my God, forevermore.
Magnify the Lord, magnify with me.
Exalt His name. Come with me!

Taste and see that the Lord, my God, is good to me.

I sought the Lord, my God, and the Lord, my God, did answer me.
I sought the Lord, my God, and the Lord, my God, delivered me.

Look to God and be radiant, so your faces will never be ashamed.

I’ve just released this site along with my first CD of piano music! As some of you know, it’s been a while coming, but it’s finally out! You can read more about the CD on my Music page. From there you can either purchase the CD or download/stream the tracks from most popular platforms. I hope you enjoy these, and I’m happy to hear from you either from my Contact form or on my new Facebook page.