John Willard Peterson

John Willard Peterson was an American evangelical songwriter, composer, hymnal editor, publishing executive, and choral writer whose work helped define mid-twentieth-century gospel music. He was born November 1, 1921, in Lindsborg, Kansas. During the Second World War he served as an Army Air Forces transport pilot, flying the dangerous China–Burma–India route over the Himalayas. A contemporary 1963 profile in Christianity Today described how the immense mountains, violent weather, and star-filled skies he encountered in flight deepened his sense of the grandeur of creation and supplied imagery that later entered his songwriting.

After the war Peterson studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and worked with its radio ministry, WMBI. He continued his musical education at the American Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1953. He later became president and editor-in-chief of Singspiration, a major evangelical sacred-music publisher, and edited collections including Great Hymns of the Faith. In 1977 he co-founded Good Life Productions in Scottsdale, Arizona, and later established the John W. Peterson Music Company.

Peterson wrote more than one thousand gospel songs and about thirty-five cantatas and musicals. Representative works include Heaven Came Down, Springs of Living Water, Surely Goodness and Mercy, So Send I You, and It Took a Miracle. His larger works included Night of Miracles and No Greater Love. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1986.

Peterson died in Scottsdale on September 20, 2006. His legacy lies in joining accessible congregational melody, personal testimony, biblical language, and large-scale evangelical choral writing across several decades of American church music.