Stuart Townend

Joy has dawned

Keith Getty and I wrote “Joy has dawned” as part of a project we’ve been working on entitled “Creed” – a collection of new hymns and songs based on the themes of the Apostles’ Creed. Keith and I both share a passion to see churches singing songs full of truth, compositions that not only express our love and devotion to God, but also declare the wonderful truths of the faith – truths that form the foundation of our lives.

With that in mind, we realised that there was shortage on new material on a number of key themes – one being the Incarnation. We therefore set about trying to write what is essentially a Christmas carol, telling the story and significance of Christ’s birth, and this is the result.

There are parts of the Christmas story that are so familiar to us, we tend not to appreciate how extraordinary they are: the humble circumstances of the birth of the King of kings; His choosing to come into the world as a helpless, vulnerable baby; the prophetic significance of gifts from traveling astrologers; the list goes on…

It’s a song that lends itself to a variety of musical styles, from a worship band setting to a choral piece, perhaps even a Salvation Army band arrangement, and I hope it’s a useful addition to a church’s Christmas repertoire.

Stuart Townend

WANT TO DOWNLOAD THE SHEET MUSIC TO THIS SONG? Visit www.kingswaysongs.com - the quick, easy way to get music for your church.

How deep the Father's love

Writing this song was an unusual experience for me. I'd already written quite a few songs for worship, but all in a more contemporary worship style, drawing from my own musical background. But I distinctly remember getting this feeling one day that I was going to write a hymn! Now, like most people, I am familiar with hymns - they form part of my church background, and I love the truth contained in many of them. But I don't go home at the end of a busy day and put on a hymns album! So I don't think of hymns as where I'm at musically at all!

Nevertheless, I'd been meditating on the cross, and in particular what it cost the Father to give up his beloved Son to a torturous death on a cross. And what was my part in it? Not only was it my sin that put him there, but if I'd lived at that time, it would probably have been me in that crowd, shouting with everyone else 'crucify him'. It just makes his sacrifice all the more personal, all the more amazing, and all the more humbling.

As I was thinking through this, I just began to sing the melody, and it flowed in the sort of way that makes you think you've pinched it from somewhere! So the melody was pretty instant, but the words took quite a bit of time, reworking things, trying to make every line as strong as I could.

After it was finished, I remember playing it to Dave Fellingham a few minutes before a time of worship. I was worried it was perhaps too twee, too predictable. Dave, in his typical demonstrative and over-enthusiastic way, shrugged his shoulders and said, "yeah, it's good", and that was that. It was only when I began to use it in worship, and all sorts of people of different ages and backgrounds responded to it so positively, that I thought that it might be a useful resource to the church at large.

Now I'm finding it gets used all over the world, by all sorts of churches; it seems to be as accessible to a traditional church as it is to a house church, and I'm excited by that. But it has perhaps branded me as an old man before my time. It was fed back to me that at a conference a couple who loved the song were surprised to hear I was still alive...

Stuart Townend

WANT TO DOWNLOAD THE SHEET MUSIC TO THIS SONG? Visit www.kingswaysongs.com - the quick, easy way to get music for your church.