For the crowd of thousands

Author (Dutch): Willem Barnard

Willem (Wilhelmus) Barnard was born in Rotterdam on August 15, 1920. Barnard was a Dutch protestant (Netherlands Reformed) theologian, pastor, writer and poet. He published about twenty volumes of poetry under the pseudonym Guillaume van der Graft. After graduating from the Grammar School he studied Dutch Language and Literature at Leiden. Later he studied theology and was a Netherlands Reformed minister in Hardenberg and Nijmegen. In 1954 he became study-secretary of the Prof. Dr. G. van der Leeuw-foundation, which meant a lot for the renewal of liturgy and church-hymns. In the sixties he was minister in Roosendaal, but his unstable health forced him to apply for an early retirement in 1974. He died in Utrecht on November 21, 2010. N… Go to person page >

Adapter: Fred Kaan

Fred Kaan Hymn writer. His hymns include both original work and translations. He sought to address issues of peace and justice. He was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands in July 1929. He was baptised in St Bavo Cathedral but his family did not attend church regularly. He lived through the Nazi occupation, saw three of his grandparents die of starvation, and witnessed his parents deep involvement in the resistance movement. They took in a number of refugees. He became a pacifist and began attending church in his teens. Having become interested in British Congregationalism (later to become the United Reformed Church) through a friendship, he was attended Western College in Bristol. He was ordained in 1955 at the Windsor Road Congregation… Go to person page >