How Deep the Father's Love for Us Stuart Townend, 1995

Stuart Townend, an English worship leader on the staff of the publisher Kingsway, wrote How Deep the Father's Love for Us in 1995. The Hymnology Archive says he set out to write a hymn because he felt many worship songs lacked substance. The melody came to him so quickly that he worried he had borrowed it, and Christopher Idle heard a resemblance to Doane's tune Near the Cross. The words took several days of revision. They center on what the cross cost the Father, then on the singer's own sin, and finish by boasting only in Christ's work. Townend has said he had the tone of Amazing Grace in mind. The song was probably first sung at Church of Christ the King in Brighton. The first recording was live at Stoneleigh Bible Week in 1996 on the album My First Love. It appeared in Kingsway songbooks in 1996 and in hymnals from 1999 on, and Hymnary.org lists it in 44 hymnals with lectionary use in Lent and Easter.