Annual DCCS Spring Concert 2009

One of the things I so dearly love to do is sing. Back in June of 2003, I auditioned and landed a spot in one of Douglas Counties finest Community Chorus, Douglas County Chamber Singers. I sing Tenor I for all that have a knowledge of SATB in the choral world. Over the past 5 seasons I have sang with the Chorus, many of the songs have moved me, but none like one of the pieces we are singing this Spring: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Mack Wilberg arrangement).

Wikipedia describes this piece the following way:

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is a Christian hymn composed by the 18th century Methodist pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson. The hymn is set to an American folk tune known as Nettleton, by attribution to the evangelist Asahel Nettleton who composed it early in the nineteenth century.[1] Robinson penned the words at age 22 in the year 1757[2]. The words of the hymn are in the public domain. The song has gained a degree of popularity in recent years, in large part due to an arrangement by Mack Wilberg, which appears at the end of the BYU Choirs concert "A Thanksgiving of American Folk Hymns," recorded in April 1994, which is rebroadcast annually by hundreds of PBS affiliates.

I have posted a link to the BYU rendition for your listening pleasure. I might add that we don't have as many members in our group as BYU, nor do we have a full Orchestra, but we do have an awesome Director and an even more profound young Accompanist. It is an awesome piece. The words to the revised version are:

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,

Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I'm come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let that grace now like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander,

Lord, I feel it,Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

It serves as a reminder to me that I am covered by the

Blood of my Precious Savior, Jesus Christ and I am

Eternally Grateful for the opportunity to do what I

love to do & that He has given me a voice to Sing

His Praises.