Scripture References:
st. 1 = John 13:2-5

Tom Colvin (PHH 352), long-term missionary to Africa, wrote this text in 1963 in Chereponi, northern Ghana, while he was attending a lay-training course in agriculture, development, and evangelism. New converts had brought a folk melody to this meeting, which they thought might be appropriate for a text about Christian love. Colvin explained his writing of the text as follows:

Sitting there in the moonlight, I felt it simply had to be about black and white, rich and poor. I was ashamed of the wasteful affluence of my people but proud of the Gospel that transforms us into servants of one another. It is only when we who are rich learn to have the humility of the slave towards the poor of the world that we shall be able to learn from them; they have so much to teach us and share with us.

Colvin shared text and tune with the Iona Community in Scotland. After the hymn was published in their collection Free to Serve: Hymns from Africa (1968), its popularity spread to other Christian communities. It was also published in many other hymn books.

This fine text is based on Jesus' personalized object lesson on servanthood when he washed his disciples' feet (John 13:1-17) and on Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan. That parable was his response to the question “Who is my Neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37).

Liturgical Use:
Many occasions of worship in which Christian servanthood is the theme, thus missions services and services that focus on diaconal work.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

CHEREPONI was originally a traditional Ghanaian love song. Colvin named the tune after the village in which he first heard it and in which he wrote his text. The traditional African performance for melodies like CHEREPONI involves a leader and a group as well as various percussion instruments and clapping. Such a practice can easily be implemented in congregations that have one or several soloists or a choir. If you have drummers in your church, have them improvise some ostinato rhythms on drums and/ or tambourines. Because this is a perpetual energy kind of song, make sure that there are no rhythmic pauses between the refrain and the stanzas.

The hymnal harmony was prepared by Jane Marshall (b. Dallas, TX, 1924) for Colvin's collection Fill Us with Your Love (1983). A graduate of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Marshall taught music theory at Southern Methodist's School of Music (1968-1975) and church music at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist (1975-1986). She was a church musician at several Presbyterian and United Methodist congregations in the Dallas area. Active in the American Guild of Organists, the Choristers Guild, and the American Choral Directors Association, Marshall has been honored for her leadership roles in the musical life of the United Methodist and the Southern Baptist denominations. She has composed many anthems, contributed to numerous choral collections, and published a number of hymn tunes.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook