Blessed Assurance

The story of this hymn

Fanny Crosby, blinded in infancy, wrote the words to more than eight thousand hymns. One day in 1873 her friend Phoebe Knapp played her a new melody and asked what it said; Crosby listened and answered, 'Blessed assurance — Jesus is mine!', and the verses followed. Carried worldwide by the Moody and Sankey revival campaigns, it became a hymn families choose when they want a funeral to sound like thanksgiving rather than mourning.

Where it sits in the service

The hymn families reach for when the service is a thanksgiving — bright enough to close on, and often placed straight after the tributes to lift the room. Congregations know the refrain far better than the verses, so print every verse in full; and because the refrain repeats, it forgives a congregation that starts uncertainly and gathers strength as it goes.

In the programme, list it in the order of service as “Hymn — Blessed Assurance” with the leader or choir named beside it.

How it is actually sung

Bright rather than sombre, with a refrain the congregation will join even if the verses are unfamiliar. It suits a celebration of life or a homegoing far better than a burial service in the first raw week. Fanny Crosby wrote it blind, which is worth a sentence from whoever is leading if the family wants to say something about it.

Printing the words

Public domain. The refrain is the essential part to print — verses can be shortened without loss, the refrain cannot.

This is practical guidance rather than legal advice. Reproduction rights vary by territory, by hymnal edition and by the licence your church holds — the church office is the right place to ask, and they answer this question often.