Notating Pullen’s Message for the World
I enjoy the craft of music notation and find it a valuable tool in Music Ministry. Throughout history, various systems of symbols representing musical sound were developed to help music be experienced and expressed. Interestingly, it was a medieval Italian Benedictine monk that is credited among others in establishing the western system of music notation. As a child I became intrigued with the writing of music when a visiting evangelist at my church inscribed a song on paper during the Sunday school hour and sang it the same day in worship! The tool of music notation not only allowed his song to be expressed on that day, but also to be published (and years later, sung by me in the same church for my ordination). When arriving at Oklahoma Baptist University, I found displayed in the music school the handwritten manuscripts of B.B. McKinney, a hymnwriter whose texts and music greatly influenced my childhood. I was amazed to see the original copies of his hymns, and couldn’t pass them in the hallway without stopping and studying them in wonder. One of my courses as a university composition major was on the art of music notation where I learned its intricate skills using a calligraphy pen, pencil, ruler and staff paper. I now use knowledge from that course to digitally notate music with a Microsoft pen on a computer pad, or with a Midi keyboard and notation software. Like a message sent out to sea in the proverbial bottle, music notated by hand or with computer preserves and passes down composers’ creations to many places and to future generations.
Music notation has sent out meaningful music and words from Pullen, extending our ministry through time and space. Former Pullen Pastor, Edwin McNeill Poteat, Jr., is perhaps the first example of this through the writing and publishing of his hymn, “Eternal God, Whose Searching Eye Doth Scan.” Often referred to as the “Pullen Hymn,” the words and music of the hymn were created by Poteat and sung by church leaders from around the world at the first gathering of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. Through the communicative notation of music, the World Council of Churches was instructed and inspired by this Pullen hymn’s text as it boldly called the universal Church to be “wide as the world and broad as humankind.”
[Find out more about Edwin McNeill Poteat, Jr., and his compositions on the NC PEDIA site of the State Library of North Carolina: https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/poteat-edwin-mcneill-jr]
For many years, Pullen member, Pat Long, has expressed poetic theology and harmonic music through the creation of hymns. Her tune, “PULLEN,” is paired with her text, “Beloved God,” expressing an expansive view of the Divine as it encourages care for the earth and all of its creatures. In 1995, former Pullen Minister of Music, Michael Hawn, included “Beloved God” in a book of worship resources collected from a wide stream of Baptists (For the Living of These Days: Resources for Enriching Worship, Smyth & Helwys Publishing). It was this publication that first introduced me to Pat and other Pullen folk included in the book, and in 2009, I included Pat’s hymn in Pullen’s 125th anniversary collection, In Our Own Voice. But these are not the only books in which you’ll find it. Thanks to notation and publication, the Chinese Christian Literature Council in Hong Kong discovered “Beloved God,” and printed it in both Chinese and English in their hymnal (Hymns of Universal Praise, 2006). This hymn-prayer of Pat’s, inspired by her experience at Pullen, offers worshipers in Asia important words to sing.
[Pat Long’s hymn, “Beloved God” with tune name: “PULLEN,” in Chinese and English languages printed side-by-side in the Hymns of Universal Praise, 2006.]
In January 2022 I received an email from hymn writer and editor, Laurence Waring, who introduced himself as the compiler of an online hymnal, “Singing the Faith Plus,” offered by United Methodists in the UK. This progressive European denomination was preparing to launch an initiative called “Walking with Micah,” and was searching for worship songs to help congregations seek and do justice. Finding Pullen’s In Our Own Voice hymnal online, he discovered Sally Buckner’s refrain, “We Shall Seek Justice,” (based on Micah 6:8), and was eager to gain permission to include it in the resource. Sally, a beloved Pullen saint and gifted poet, asked me years ago to arrange her tune, and through this distribution her creative legacy continues to be shared with the world and among Methodists in the UK.
[“We Shall Seek Justice” in print and recorded versions, along with articles about Sally, Larry and Pullen Church are included on the Singing the Faith Plus site: https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/worship/singing-the-faith-plus/seasons-and-themes/themes/walking-with-micah/]
Pullen’s worldwide influence through song must also highlight the instructive work and world music arrangements of Michael Hawn. Michael was part-time Minister of Music at Pullen when he was a professor at Southeastern Seminary in the 1980’s/early 90’s. Michael once told me that he was grateful to Pullen for allowing him time for a study leave to learn from and bring back a variety of global worship music. With this beginning, his scholarship and leadership as a world music student and teacher grew to inspire countless church musicians, and his global music arrangements provide worshipers around the planet with resources from many cultures.
[Find out more about Michael Hawn through his bio on the site of Choristers Guild, one of many organizations and publishers in which he contributes his expertise: https://www.choristersguild.org/document//160/]
I never cease to be amazed when a musical creation of mine or someone I know is transmitted through notation to the other side of the globe. Years ago, I serendipitously discovered on YouTube a Taiwanese Children’s Choir singing one of my anthems. Though I composed the piece while living in Greenwood, South Carolina, the inscribed language of music transported it to children a world away! It’s amazing to think that a child may be humming one’s tune while playing on a distant playground. And, as a Minister of Music, it’s fulfilling to provide the global Church with words and music to expand thinking and experience. A baptism hymn of mine seeks to do that as it separates harmful substitutionary atonement theology from the ritual. Informed by Pullen’s baptismal liturgy and practice, the words sing of fear being washed away in the waters of full acceptance. Several denominations have included this hymn and others inspired by Pullen in their congregational hymnals.
[“With Water Freely Flowing” is included with other Pullen-inspired hymns by Larry in the hymnals of the Mennonite Church, Community of Christ congregations, Reformed Churches, and progressive Baptists.]
Thanks to music symbols arranged with lyrics on a page, diverse congregations can explore the music, thoughts and theologies created by persons such as Sally Buckner, Michael Hawn, Pat Long, Edwin McNeill Poteat, and Nancy Petty, who once dictated through her singing a beautiful song I notated and arranged. After being typeset, “As We Come to the Table of Love,” and its message of unrestricted inclusion has been sung by others, and is available for singing by churches the world over.
[Listed by its first stanza line (“What Is Required to Come to this Table?”) see Nancy’s and Larry’s “As We Come to the Table of Love” on the Hymnary site, noting its inclusion in the hymnal, “Inclusive Songs for Resistance and Social Action”: https://hymnary.org/hymn/ISRS2018/4 ]
I celebrate the awareness that the written symbols of music notation can bring the global community together and minister through the expression of meaningful words and song. Thanks be to the Source of Music for lines and spaces, noteheads and stems, clefs, keys and many other music symbols typeset on paper or in digital files – for with lyrics they preserve and pass on Pullen’s liberating message of love throughout the world.
Larry E. Schultz, Minister of Music
