Billy Foote is a singer/songwriter/podcaster who has settled in Amarillo, TX, after a time of itinerant music ministry with his wife and daughters. A longtime guitar player and worship leader, Billy started to write songs for “himself, Jesus, and the small events in which he led.” The third song he ever wrote is titled “You Are My King”, which is more widely known as “Amazing Love”. After developing a neurological condition which caused his vocal cords to spasm, his wife Cindy stepped in to lead singing while Billy continued to write both lyrics and music for songs.
Charles Silvester Horne was a Congregationalist minister and MP in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The son of a Congregationalist minister and later a newspaper editor, Horne studied at Glasgow University and Mansfield College, Oxford. After university, he became the minister of Kensington Chapel and later Whitefield’s Church, Tottenham Court Road, where he began to write hymns. He died in 1914 while on holiday in Canada, leaving behind his wife and children in England. His most well-known hymn text is “Sing to the King who is coming to reign”, also written as “Sing we the King who is coming to reign”.
Around 2003, Billy Foote adapted Horne’s hymn text and wrote music which gave us the song “Sing to the King”, which is Ascension’s gathering hymn for Sunday, November 20, 2022.