“Crown The King With Praise” Communion Orchestrations
Back in the mid-80's, I had the opportunity to work on an Easter musical, “Crown The King With Praise”, with a wonderful songwriter, Steve Adams. This was my second musical with Steve, with the first being my very first ever Christmas musical called, “Cradle The King With Praise”.
In “Cradle The King With Praise”, there was a moment planned for the church to take communion during the musical. I was not aware of any arrangements of hymns written specifically for orchestra that were the right texture or length to be used during a communion service. So I suggested that we incorporate four short arrangements of hymns that churches could choose from for the elements of communion.
At the time, more and more churches were beginning to use orchestras in their church, so we wanted to make sure that there was music available to fit into the communion service. Since the time of writing those arrangements, there are a number of churches (including where I attend) that have used this music within the context of a communion service.
The hymns that we chose were, "Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross", "My Jesus I Love Thee”, “Jesus the Very Thought of Thee", and "Man of Sorrows”. I chose these 4 because of their unique message relating to communion.
"Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross" is a reminder that the cross was where God demonstrated His love in the most impactful way.
"My Jesus I Love Thee” is a statement of God desiring us to return our love to Him for who He is and what He's done.
“Jesus the Very Thought of Thee" is the knowledge of His promise of eternal life.
"Man of Sorrows” is the reminder of what Jesus chose to go through in my place for me to shout “Hallelujah! What a Savior.”
I love hearing these arrangements as offertories as well. Each one of these are great reminders of God's unconditional love for us.