Welcome to our Advent Hymn-sing! We look forward this month to featuring various carols as well as a weekly story behind one of the carols. Keep hoping and keep singing this Advent!

Romans 15:13 – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

---

For “littles” and “young at heart”

Prayer of Service:

(Feel free to say each line and have your child repeat what you say or say it as you pray together.)

Dear God,
The last year has been so hard with people getting sick from the virus. I miss seeing ________ (insert extended family) and my friends from school and church. Please help this new year of 2021 be happier and healthier so we can stay in school. So we can see all of our young and old friends from church. So we can go to church for Sunday School and worship.
And thank you for giving us your son Jesus.
Amen.

---

Good Christian Kids Rejoice

---

O Come All Ye Faithful
1743

Hymn Background:

“And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him; gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Matthew 2:11

John Francis Wade, author of this hymn, was harassed and hounded out of England in 1745. He was a Roman Catholic layman in Lancashire; but because of persecution arising, streams of Catholics fled to France and Portugal, where communities of English-speaking Catholics were founded.

As a refugee Wade needed to find a way to support himself. In those days, the printing of musical scores were cumbersome, and copying them by hand was considered an art. He taught music and became a renowned copyist whose work was considered exquisite.

In 1743 at age 32, he composed a Latin Christmas carol beginning with the phrase Adeste Fidelis, Laeti triumphantes. This became our familiar carol ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’.

As time passed, English Catholics began returning to Britain and they brought Wade’s carol with them. An Angican minister named Rev. Frederick Oakeley in London came across this beautiful carol and translated it into English. The first line said: “Ye Faithful, Approach Ye.”

Somehow that first line didn’t catch on so years later Rev. Oakeley came up with the simpler, more vigorous version we sing today. John Wade passed away in 1786 at the age of 75. His obituary honored him for his “beautiful manuscripts” that adorned chapels and homes.

So two brave Englishmen, men of faith, lovers of Christmas and of hymns, living 100 years apart, writing in two different nations, combined their talents to bid us come, joyful and triumphant, and adore Him born the King of angels.

LYRICS:

O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem; Come and behold Him, born the King of angels.

Refrain- O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him.
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord

Sing choirs of angels. Sing in exultation. Sing all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest; Refrain
Child for us sinners poor and in the manger; We would embrace thee with love and awe;
Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly? Refrain

Yea Lord we greet thee born for our salvation. Jesus to thee be all glory given;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. Refrain

---

---

There’s a Song in the Air!