by Wayne S. Walker<\/p>\n
Ellis J. Crum was born on April 11, 1928, in Bloomington, Indiana, the son of Ellis J. and Marion Lucille Rice Crum. Even at the age of five, he was telling Bible stories to large crowds. From the ages of eight to twelve, he spoke on subjects such as “Fighting the Good Fight of Faith” and “What Boys Can Do,” often standing before audiences of 800 or more. His first sermon took place at the age of sixteen in Bloomfield, Indiana. Additionally, he attended the Stamps-Baxter School of Music in 1944, where he first began working on his dream of publishing a hymnbook.<\/p>\n
Graduating from Linton Stockton High School in Linton, Indiana, Crum married Norma Nell Owens of Lyons, Indiana, on August 25, 1946, in Vincennes, Indiana, and enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington. After two years of college, he moved to work in preaching with the church of Christ at Bridgeport, Connecticut. His evangelistic labors in North America took him from Connecticut to California, and from Canada to Mexico. The Crums had five children, two of whom were born when he was working with the church in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Beginning in 1958, for many years the Crums made their home in Kendallville, Indiana, and his work often involved home Bible studies, personal work training classes, camp directing, song instruction, and speaking at workshops, in addition to visiting over thirty countries, including several tours of the Bible lands and five preaching trips to Ghana in Africa.<\/p>\n
In 1956, Crum published his first hymnbook, Sacred Selections for the Church<\/em>. In 1977, Crum published Special Sacred Selections<\/em>. Additionally, he acquired the R. E. Winsett Music Co. and merged it with Sacred Selections to form the Sacred Music Trust. Among the over 150 hymns which Crum has written, composed, or arranged, are some extra stanzas, found in Special Sacred Selections<\/em>, for “Lead Me to Some Soul Today” with original single stanza by Will H. Houghton and tune by Wendell P. Loveless. Also, he provided the lyrics for the communion hymn “The Breaking of Bread,” which he set to the tune of “Break Thou the Bread of Life,” composed by William M. Sherwin. Brother Crum died at the age of 83 on Monday, October 17, 2011, in Lutheran Life Villages, Kendallville.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Wayne S. Walker Ellis J. Crum was born on April 11, 1928, in Bloomington, Indiana, the son of Ellis J. and Marion Lucille Rice Crum. Even at the age of five, he was telling Bible stories to large crowds. From the ages of eight to twelve, he spoke on subjects such as “Fighting the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[520,521],"class_list":["post-86817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-music","tag-songs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20632,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/review-of-sacred-songs-of-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":86817,"position":0},"title":"Review of Sacred Songs of the Church","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker The first new hymnbook among churches of Christ for the 21st century (notwithstanding the late Alton H. Howard's\u00a0Songs of the Church 21st Century Edition\u00a0which actually came out in 1990) is now available.\u00a0It is\u00a0Sacred Songs of the Church, edited by William D. Jeffcoat, copyrighted in 2007 by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/SacredSongsOfTheChurch.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":59338,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-review-of-the-hymnbooks\/","url_meta":{"origin":86817,"position":1},"title":"A Review of the Hymnbooks","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker Originally published in Torch, October 1988 Please understand that my review is of necessity going to be biased by my own view of what constitutes a good hymn selection. With that in mind, I shall begin by saying that I grew up using the old \"brown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14609,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-songbooks-would-you-recommend\/","url_meta":{"origin":86817,"position":2},"title":"What songbooks would you recommend?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: We are building a new building and we are needing songbooks. My husband is one of the song leaders. I would like to know which book you would recommend to us. We are strictly a New Testament church. No musical instruments and no praise teams. Also, I need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35011,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-history-of-our-hymnbooks\/","url_meta":{"origin":86817,"position":3},"title":"A History of Our Hymnbooks","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker originally published in Faith and Facts, October 1999 Back in the very late 1700s and early 1800s, the conditions in this new nation appeared just right for a number of different men from different denominational backgrounds in different parts of the country to begin calling for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58718,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/please-knock-on-my-door\/","url_meta":{"origin":86817,"position":4},"title":"Please Knock on My Door!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dick Cupp Have you ever hesitated to knock on someone's door, afraid that those inside don't want to hear anything about the gospel of Christ? 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