The Hymn That Shows Up at Every Funeral
You will find this song in most hymnals and it gets played at weddings too. The lyrics are straightforward. Here are the words you need. Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
O Thou my ever present Helper,
Lo, Thou bless us this side by side.
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness:
Great is Thy faithfulness, love overcomes.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
O Thou my ever present Helper,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Christ Jesus Himself, my great Rock, refuges:
Whom I seek Thee Thy face; I'll ever pray—
Hearing the voice of my Savior sweetly calling:
"Come unto Me and rest; lo, I say, I am the way." The version above includes both the classic William Chatterton Troxell text and some modern congregational adjustments. The original 1923 version by Thomas O. Chisholm runs three stanzas and ends with the sunrise line. If you are transcribing this for a church bulletin or printing it in a program, you will run into a real problem. Most printed sources do not agree on the exact wording of the second stanza. Some say "morning by morning new mercies I see" while others print "morning by morning new mercies I greet." That difference matters if you are preparing sheet music or doing vocal arrangement work. I spent about forty minutes cross-referencing hymnals before finding a version that matched what the congregation was actually singing. The workaround was asking the worship leader directly and then checking the official denominational resource. Don't skip that step. It saves you from correcting a lyric sheet in front of fifty people.
The melody was composed by Mark A. Brenton and published alongside the lyrics in 1923. The tune is called "Bethany." It sits comfortably in common time and mostly stays within an octave, which is why it works for amateur choirs and soloists alike. The range is roughly D to D an octave higher. If you are arranging this for a smaller vocal group or an acoustic guitar accompaniment, you will notice the chorus section lands on the tonic repeatedly. That repetitive return makes it easy to transpose down a half step or whole step without losing the emotional weight of the phrase. Here is something people miss. The phrase "shadow of turning" comes from James 1:17 in the King James Bible. Most performers treat that line as just poetic language. It is not. It is a direct scriptural reference to God's unchanging nature. When you sing this at a service, people in the back row might not catch the connection, but the person playing piano definitely knows it. You can lean into that theological anchor when you are doing dynamics. The first "Great is Thy faithfulness" should open broad and sustained. The second time through, pull back slightly. That contrast is where the song lives or dies. Another practical note. The bridge line about seasons and celestial bodies is where arrangements tend to get cluttered. I have seen too many piano charts overload that section with running sixteenth notes. It drowns out the words and nobody needs that. Keep it sparse. The natural harmonic movement supports the lyrics without extra decoration. Stick to sustained chords and let the melody carry the weight.
If you need the sheet music, most hymnals list the tune as BCP 418 or Hymnal 1982 #534. You can find PDFs through standard church music suppliers like Shawnee Press or OCP. For the original text only, Project Gutenberg has a public domain edition. Modern copyright versions are controlled by various publishing houses, so check the terms before distributing anything publicly. The song has been covered by plenty of artists. Selah recorded a version in the nineties that charts well. Merle Haggard did a country reading. Those are worth listening to if you are deciding on tempo and phrasing. The traditional hymnal tempo hovers around 72 to 76 beats per minute. Going faster turns it into a march. Going slower makes it drag. Stay in that pocket. One more thing. If you are performing this live and someone asks for the full lyrics onstage, don't try to recite them from memory without checking first. Different denominations drop or swap lines in the third stanza. I learned that the hard way at a wedding where the officiant used a different version than the band. We ended up halfway through the second chorus realizing we were on different words. It was awkward. Keep a printed copy nearby. Nobody notices when you glance at it.
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