Almighty God, whose name is great

Emma Turl’s words were written, to mark the millennium celebrations of the year 2000: see also 789, note. While travelling to Scotland in July 1998 she read in a Braille magazine about the St Paul’s Cathedral ‘Millennium Hymn Competition’. It was during a few days on the island of Mull which ‘provided a fertile environment in which to reflect on such a unique landmark in our history’, that these words were written. Soon after returning home she discovered that the rules specified the metre, and thus disqualified the 2 entries she had drafted. She then worked at different texts for the competition, but sent the earlier ones ‘very tentatively’ to the Praise! group in Nov 1998. This one began ‘Almighty God, your name so great/ is lifted up in heav’n and earth …’, but was followed by a revised text in Jan 1999, with a new opening and says ‘the competition may have been the excuse, but I was excited to think of the Lord’s faithfulness to his church over two millennia, and glad to have the opportunity to mark this to some degree.’ The hymn is characteristically rich in Scripture imagery, and was designed for Gill Berry’s music for the author’s version of Ps 104.

That paraphrase, however, was not chosen for Praise! and Gill Berry then composed CHILWORTH (at Shrewsbury in 1999) for this new hymn. Tune and text were first published in Evangelicals Now (see 167, note) in Dec 1999/Jan 2000, at the dawn of the ‘millennium year’, and like the preceding item make their hymnal debut here. The composer spent her childhood near Chilworth in Surrey, just S of Guildford.

b Shrewsbury 1946. Stamford High Sch (Lincs) and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (MA English and Cert Ed). Born into a literary household, she loved poetry from childhood, and was converted aged 13 at a Scripture Union camp. She worked as VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) for two years in Ugandan ‘revival country’. Following this she married John and spent the next ten years (1971-81) in Ghana, afterwards returning to live in Waltham Abbey, Essex, where she and her family joined Goldings Hill Evangelical Free Ch, Loughton (1982–2002). She now attends the Abbey Church. While enjoying chanted Psalms as a student she longed for more congregationally accessible ways of singing them, and attributes her first desire to write ‘Bible oriented verse’ to a literary household, and Anglican services (St Ebbe’s Oxford) with readings and canticles. Her first metrical versions were written between 1983 and 1985, during which time she had paraphrased the entire Psalter. A few of these Psalm texts were printed with other verses in Treasures Old and New, 1989, followed by Time to Celebrate 1999, with suggested tunes from her husband John and friend Gill Berry, qv. Some of these are specially needed to accompany a number of unusual metres. Subsequently she has revised many of her original texts in the light of further comments and computer assisted discoveries, and has also added some new versions.
The monthly Evangelicals Now (see under Benton J) published her work occasionally from 1993; Praise! is the first hymnal to include her texts and one of these features in the 2004 edn of CH. Her sight began to deteriorate early; by the age of 13 she could read only with a strong magnifying glass, reading became increasingly difficult and slow, and by her mid 20s she was completely blind. This made her unaware of ‘the oustanding new hymns and Psalm versions which others were already producing, which could have inspired me but could well have put me off’. See her comments on some ‘blindness/sight’ hymns, with practical pastoral considerations, in ‘Singing without seeing’ in HSB234 (Jan 2003). In an earlier Bulletin review (no.225, Oct 2000), Basil E Bridge calls her hymns ‘thoroughly biblical…well – sometimes ingeniously – crafted…I am sure we shall be hearing more of Emma Turl in the future’. Her own choice of 15 of them appears in the collection of contemporary hymns, Emma now attends the abbey church in Waltham Abbey. More of her hymns can be found on the website of The Jubilate Group: www.jubilate.org
Come Celebrate (2009). Nos.30C, 53, 84A, 106, 107, 110, 119G, 123, 130, 168, 825, 1011, 1014, 1034, 1038, 1041, 1045, 1053, 1054, 1058, 1059, 1062, 1063, 1069, 1087, 1088, 1089, 1091, 1092, 1096, 1101, 1103, 1107, 1108, 1110, 1134, 1137, 1195, 1213, 1216, 1239, 1246.