The Story Behind the Song
Ralph Carmichael (b. 1927) is a prolific composer, arranger, conductor and entrepreneur who has been called by some the “Father of Contemporary Christian Music.” Although born two and a half centuries later, his life shares an interesting similarity with that of Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the “Father of English Hymnody.” Both were sons of church leaders (Watts’ father was a deacon, Carmichael’s a minister) and both were dismayed by the music of the churches in which they grew up. As a young man around 20 years of age, Watts complained to his father about the “doleful psalm singing” of his church. Enoch Watts then challenged his son to write something better for the church to sing. And write he did. Over the course of his lifetime, Isaac would pen roughly 600 hymns, including such masterworks as Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed; Come, We That Love the Lord; I Sing the Almighty Power of God; O God, Our Help in Ages Past; Joy to the World! The Lord Is Come; and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
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Ralph Carmichael also was discouraged by the music he heard in church while growing up. Decades later, he reminisced about the differences he had heard as a youth between popular music and that of his faith: “I was captivated by the chordal explosions I heard on the radio. I felt a sadness that we didn’t have that in our church. Our church orchestra sounded weak and terrible by comparison. It was embarrassing. Why? Why did we have to settle? Why couldn’t we use those gorgeous rhythms, sweeping strings, the brass, the stirring chords? That started to control everything I did.”
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From the time he enrolled at Southern California Bible College in Costa Mesa (now Vanguard University), Carmichael was an innovator, testing how to combine a Christian message with a popular music medium. “He started a campus men’s quartet, ensembles and mixed groups of all kinds, blending jazz and classical music techniques with gospel songs and hymns. His musical ‘experiments’ proved instantly controversial. His bands were unwelcome at many churches, and he was not allowed to store the baritone saxophone on campus because of its worldly associations with big band music.” He later said of his time in college, “I flunked Greek and Hebrew, but I was always organizing vocal groups and orchestras.” When he graduated, the college hired him to start its first department of evangelical music.
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In 1951, Carmichael began a working relationship with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) that would last for years. He wrote the musical score for the world’s first Christian western, Mr. Texas, which was also the first feature film produced by the BGEA’s new film studio, World Wide Pictures. Its first showing was at the Hollywood Bowl to an audience of 25,000, the largest single premiere in the history of film at the time. Carmichael would go on to compose the music for 19 more BGEA movies, including The Restless Ones (1965)—the first Christian film ever released in theaters (over two million people saw it in theaters and more than 120,000 made professions of faith)—and The Cross and the Switchblade (1973).
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But Carmichael’s talents were not used exclusively in Christian music. He also wrote the music for 1958’s sci-fi horror movie The Blob, incidental music for some episodes of I Love Lucy, and the music for all 30 episodes of the 1960s sitcom My Mother the Car. In addition, he provided arrangements for stars such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Jack Jones, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Al Martino, Roger Williams, and jazz legend Stan Kenton.
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He said: “I had no formal music education, so all the work I did in the secular field was my education. I would learn things by writing in the secular field, and then I would take them and apply them to gospel music. It didn’t seem worldly to me. It fit perfectly into praise and worship music.”
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By 1966, Ralph Carmichael had come to the conclusion that the “evangelical status quo was counterproductive to evangelism. If something wasn’t done to change the trend, I felt the church would suffer.” And change the trend he did. That year he founded a new Christian music publishing company, Lexicon Music, and a new Christian record label, Light Records, which were pioneers in the production and popularization of Christian contemporary music.
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The Savior Is Waiting was written in 1958 while Carmichael was serving as the minister of music at Temple Baptist Church in Los Angeles. His pastor, Dr. J. Lester Harnish, had requested a song to be used during the invitation for an upcoming revival. In the congregation one night was Dr. Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision. Pierce was planning a month-long revival in Japan, and he asked Carmichael to be the music director and to use The Savior Is Waiting as the invitation hymn each night. Many ministers became familiar with the hymn through its use at those two protracted meetings and took it back to their own churches. In 1967 it was first published in a hymnal, Favorite Hymns of Praise, and has appeared in 24 more since then, the most recent being One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism (2018).
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In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” The Savior is waiting. Oh, how He wants to come in. Have you already answered the call? If so, thank Him for your salvation. If not…why not?
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