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Lord, What a Cloud of Witnesses

Representative Text

Lord, what a cloud of witnesses
Surrounds us as we work and pray!
Their faithful, loving service is
An inspiration every day.

We live in towns that others made;
We harvest what we did not sow—
And others sweated, labored, prayed
To build Christ’s church in which we grow.

Your Spirit gives us memory;
Now give your church clear vision, too.
Reformed, reforming, may we be
A church that seeks to follow you.


Source: Songs of Grace: new hymns for God and neighbor #55a

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Author: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette has been a pastor in rural, small town, suburban, and city churches; she has also served as a hospice chaplain, a hospital chaplain, and a school bus aide helping children with special needs. She and her husband Bruce are pastors of the First Presbyterian Union Church in Owego, NY. Carolyn is a gifted hymn writer who has written over 400 hymns. These hymns have been sung by congregations throughout the United States and around the world — from the Washington National Cathedral to St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland to St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa to small town churches and small household congregations; they have also been sung at national church and international ecumenical meetin… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Related Texts

First Line: Lord, what a cloud of witnesses
Title: Lord, What a Cloud of Witnesses
Original Language: English
Author: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (2000)
Meter: 8.8.8.8
Language: English
Publication Date: 2000
Copyright: Copyright © 2000 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved
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Tune

TALLIS' CANON

TALLIS CANON is one of nine tunes Thomas Tallis (PHH 62) contributed to Matthew Parker's Psalter (around 1561). There it was used as a setting for Psalm 67. In the original tune the melody began in the tenor, followed by the soprano, and featured repeated phrases. Thomas Ravenscroft (PHH 59) publish…

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TRURO (Williams)

TRURO is an anonymous tune, first published in Thomas Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, (second vol., 1789) as a setting for Isaac Watts' "Now to the Lord a noble song." Virtually nothing is known about this eighteenth-century British editor of the two-volume Psalmodia Evangelica, a collection of thr…

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Instances

Instances (1 - 2 of 2)
Text

Songs of Grace #55a

Songs of Grace #55a
Text

Songs of Grace #55b

Songs of Grace #55b
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