This is an Iona Community song that we have used a lot over the years and I highly recommend it. Heaven Shall Not Wait was the collection it came from originally. It is set to a traditional Scottish tune, KELVINGROVE.
I’ve already blogged this song here because it was in As One Voice: Next Generation, and the text is there. It is one of the Wild Goose songs that you can purchase as an individual piece of sheet music from Willow.
There are notes on its use in the book:
This song has been successfully used at commitment and confirmation services. Verse 4 is sung solo and those wishing to do so, leave their seats and move to the front of the congregation. Then all sing the last verse together. In some places, people may prefer to sing this song in 2/4 time in which case simply change dotted minims to minims.
They advise that the piece should be played “not too slowly”. We found that it can be sung solo briskly but our assembly needed to breathe, so I would say neither too fast nor too slow.
I have looked at the backing I made eleven years ago and it is a good example of Band In a Box allowing you to start simply and sequentially add instruments. I replaced the melody line’s ordinary MIDI guitar sound with a HiQ sound that wasn’t available back then.