Methodist Music

Dwight L. Moody had Ira Sankey.  Billy Graham had George Beverly Shea.  John Wesley had his brother, Charles Wesley.  Of course, Charles Wesley was not his brother's song leader at those field preaching meetings, but he did bring music to the Wesleyan movement which was stirring in the 18th century.  The younger Wesley wrote some 4,500 hymns.  Many of them are in church hymnals today.  Some of them are "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, and Rejoice the Lord is King."   

If we have ever held a hymnal in our hands during a church service, it is likely that we have sung one of Charles Wesley's hymns.  A personal favorite has always been "And Can it Be."  It is one of those songs which captures the spirit and sends it soaring toward the heavens as that last verse comes round.  It is also a hymn which teaches.  Anyone who sings the hymn and slowly considers the words being sung will quickly realize it is a tutorial in Christian theology.  John Wesley surely preached sound doctrine and the people heard it.  His younger brother, the hymn writer, taught sound doctrine and the people sang it.    

It seems that Methodist people have always been singers of powerful hymns.  Certainly, not all the hymns we sing are Wesleyan, but they are on many of the pages of the hymnal.  I am grateful for those hymns written and first sung so long ago by the early followers of the Wesleys.  They have led me along on my faith journey, stirred my spirit sending it soaring into the heavens, and have become like a music library in my heart.