"Charles Wesley lives on as a song writer's song writer. I commend Asbury Seminary for this creative effort to extend his amazing craft in a fresh way for new generations of worshippers. What a great birthday gift." -Chris Tomlin While recently perusing the poetry section of a prominent bookstore, I noted a series of books with these titles, “Ten Poems to Change your Life,” “Ten Poems to Set you Free,” “Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime,” and so on. Intrigued, I paged through the series to find some quite good poetry gleaned from the ages, creatively reframed for today’s readers. Allow us to be a bit bolder with this collection. In the spirit of the fantastic CD title, let us name this collection, “16 Hymns that Rocked the Kingdom!” 300 years later, Charles Wesley has done it again. Charles Wesley’s work reveals a poet taking words to their highest powers. Like a chemist experimenting in the lab, he combines words into combusting compositions, blazing with the fire of holiness. While theologians laboriously wrestle with words to describe, define and delineate the doctrines of salvation and character of God, the poet-theologian Wesley trains words to rise up and move in declaration of God’s glory. Wesley shapes the memory of God’s Story into a mighty cathedral so profound the Church can’t stop singing them. The music you are about to pop into your cd player or download onto your ipod freight the explosive potential of Wesley’s poetry to “rock your chains off.” Whenever the memory of the Son of God meets the melody of an age, the movement is born again. The ever-new wine of Charles Wesley’s vintage craft, finds the new wineskins of our time in these creative compositions. May the Holy Spirit be unleashed through this work to intoxicate a generation again with the sobering reality of the depth of mercy, lifting us up to the excelling heights of Love Divine. John David Walt, Jr. Dean of the Chapel Asbury Theological Seminary