Kneels at the feet of his friends

Kneels at the feet of his friends. Tom Colvin* (1925-2000). Often known by the first line of its refrain, ‘Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love’, this song was written in Ghana during Colvin's period of missionary service, 1959-64, and set to an indigenous love-song melody collected at Chereponi in northern Ghana. The text, based on John 13: 12-16, had its birth during a lay training course for evangelists, where the curriculum also included agricultural and community development, reflecting the flexible, diaconal role these church workers would be expected to fill. Of all Colvin's hymns, this makes the most frequent appearance in contemporary books, now revised to be more inclusive in...