Kindly overlook the malfunction leaving the choir out of view until the interlude after verse two (and the audibility of the voice of a certain nearby congregant). Appreciate instead how Shiloh Baptist Church's Senior Choir led the Washington, D.C., congregation in this well-known hymn of Thanksgiving on a Dutch tune at the 10:55 a.m. service on Sunday Nov. 25, 2007. The accomplished musician Evelyn Simpson Curenton accompanied on the 48-rank Casavant organ with percussionists joining fully on the last verse. The harmonies volunteered by the sopranos and altos in the vested chorus had the effect of a slight descant after the key change. All came together for a celebratory effect on this Thanksgiving weekend in the nation's capital.
A brief history of this great hymn is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Gather_Together. The verses, as published in the twenty-second printing of The New National Baptist Hymnal (1985), are:
1. We gather together
to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens
His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing
now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His name,
He forgets not His own.
2. Beside us to guide us,
our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining
His kingdom divine;
so from the beginning
the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side:
all glory be Thine!
3. We all do extol Thee,
Thou leader in battle,
and pray that Thou still
our defender wilt be.
Let Thy congregation
escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised:
O Lord, make us free! Amen.
Tags: shiloh baptist church washington dc wallace smith shaw senior choir organ casavant pipe vested anthem black thanksgivin
