I come with joy

Brian A. Wren (b. 1936), who wrote this communion hymn in 1968, was educated in the Grammar school in his hometown in Essex. He studied modern languages at New College, Oxford, and theology at Mansfield College, receiving a DPhil from Oxford in 1968.  Ordained in what is now the United Reformed Church, Wren was pastor of a Congregationalist church in Essex and then served for 13 years in various U.K. charitable organizations.  He turned to free-lance ministry and academic work until appointed Conant Professor of Worship in the Columbia Theological Seminary,  Decatur, Georgia.  In addition to his many hymns and hymn collections, Wren has written much on theology and hymnody.  His strong advocacy of inclusive language resulted in What Language Shall I Borrow? - God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology and his conviction of the importance of theology in hymns in Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song.  The first version of this hymn was published in The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada (“the red book”) in 1971; Wren significantly revised the text in 1980 and again in 1993 or 1994.  

 

The tune “St Botolph” was composed in 1929 by Gordon Slater (1896-1979); it was published the next year in Songs of Praise for Boys and Girls.  Slater had been organist of St. Botolph's Parish Church (often known as “the Boston Stump”) in Boston, Lincolnshire, England from 1919 to 1927, when he moved to Leicester Cathedral.  Later he became organist of Lincoln Cathedral.