Revival is coming! Repentance is coming! Renewal is coming! Refreshing is coming! A new appetite and hunger for God will characterize the helpless and the hopeless! And in that process, Christians will collaborate… will pray together… will work together… for HIS Kingdom! Not so much for “ours!”
This has been illustrated repeatedly in Church history. In the 19th century, believers were drawn to wherever God was “doing something wonderful!” They didn’t care what building the meeting was in! It was so true in the prayer revival of the late 1850’s — and “denomination” had absolutely nothing to do with it! The “protracted meetings” and “summer camp meetings” and prayer meetings were amazing!
The same was true in the Christian music world. Fanny Crosby the lyricist and composer William Doane: Fanny a Methodist and Doane a Baptist, but that mattered nothing at all to either one of them! Those two had a camaraderie to work together that was God-given! They only cared to serve the Lord!
Doane was also an inventor and a successful businessman. He patented 70 inventions and was the president of the J. A. Fay & Company, a manufacturer of woodworking equipment in Cincinnati. Doane worked in Sunday Schools and compiled gospel songbooks. He personally composed about 2,300 tunes. Fanny wrote about 9,000 hymn lyrics. He was a keyboardist and leader of worship.
“Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior”
The second time Doane visited Fanny in New York City, he asked her to write a song using the phrase “Pass me not, O gentle Savior.” She agreed to do so but didn’t work on the project for several weeks. During the spring of 1868, while speaking at a prison in Manhattan, she heard an inmate cry out, “Good Lord, do not pass me by!” She immediately recalled the phrase Doane had given her. That evening in her room she wrote the hymn.
“I Am Thine, O Lord”
While on a speaking tour, Fanny stayed at Doane’s home in Cincinnati. One evening they discussed “God’s nearness.” Before going to sleep that night, Fanny wrote the hymn, “I Am Thine, O Lord.” Doane later wrote the melody.
“Rescue the Perishing”
In her autobiography, Fanny writes: “Not a few of my hymns have been written after experiences at the New York missions. One in particular has been used far and wide in evangelistic work. As I was addressing a large company of working men one hot August evening, the thought kept forcing itself upon my mind that some mother’s boy must be rescued that very night or perhaps not at all. So I requested that, if there was any boy present, who had wandered away from mother’s teaching, he would come to the platform at the conclusion of the service.
“A young man of eighteen came forward and said, “Did you mean me? I have promised my mother to meet her in heaven; but as I am now living that will be impossible.” We prayed for him; he finally arose with a new light in his eyes; and exclaimed triumphantly, “Now, I can meet mother in heaven; for I have found her God!”
“A few days before, Mr. Doane had sent me the subject Rescue the Perishing, and while I sat there that evening the line came to me, “Rescue the perishing, care for the dying.” I could think of nothing else that night. When I arrived at my home I went to work on it at once; and before I retired the entire hymn was ready for a melody.”
If you have a background in the “old hymns,” this list may be meaningful for you. Here is a sampling of the hymns that “came together” as the Baptist businessman W. H. Doane wrote the music to fit the poetic lyrics of the blind Methodist hymnwriter Fanny Crosby:
Near the Cross I Am Thine O Lord Jesus Is Passing This Way To God Be the Glory
Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior Rescue the Perishing Will Jesus Find Us Watching?
More Like Jesus Though Your Sins Be as Scarlet Safe in the Arms of Jesus
’Tis the Blessed Hour of Prayer Hide Me Savior, More Than Life to Me
Only Eternity will reveal the powerful impact of collaborative hymn-writer projects as God’s servants worked together, busily building His Kingdom! This process is happening in many areas of the world today! And it’s growing!
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