A week later
It was a joy to attend the first meeting of the Presbyterian Hymnal Committee last week. Strange, I know, “a joy to attend a meeting.” Truly, though, I had a great time getting to know the other committee members, and getting a better grasp of our task.
The Presbyterian News Service has a wee pic from the commissioning service here.
And Linda Valentine blogs about things here.
I won’t bore you with meeting details, but I will say that I took away from our meeting both great excitement about the road ahead and clarity that the task before us is, well, hard.
The largest American Lutheran denomination (ELCA) came out with their newest hymnal two years ago. Rumor has it, they received over 10,000 hymns to consider for the hymnal. That number is both heartening since it shows the huge popularity of hymnody and explosion of new texts and tunes in recent years, but also harrowing since the committee had to find the time and energy to consider 10,000 hymns!
The PC(USA) is in a delicate place at the moment, theologically, pastorally, financially. My personal hope, then, is that through the process of developing the next hymnal we might in some way, with God’s help, be strengthened, uplifted, and soothed through the collection of hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs to God. After all, it is to God’s glory that we work and sing.
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How cool that you got on the hymnal committee! I’m sure that won’t be contentious or cause any conflicts in the denomination…ha ha. Having read about your abroad time in the UK, did you get a chance to look through the relatively new hymanl of the Church of Scotland? I believe John Bell edited it, and it has some really neat stuff in it.
Also, it might be interesting to discuss a “digital” hymnal in association with the more traditional print version. Talking about have 10,000 hymns introduced into a discussion, a cd/dvd style hymnal might provide ways to incorporate more hymns without having to break people’s wrists who hold 50 pound books. Is there a possibility that with copyright and such, the hymns could be printed from the cd for worship? Also, this would be a good way for churches that use praise bands and screens to have a digital means of projecting more tradiational-looking music and words on the screen. Something to think about.
Also, I really want “We’re Marching to Zion” in the new hymnal…
Thanks, Andrew. Yes, “The Church Hymnary” or as it’s called in Scotland, CH4 is definitely a great resource for us–and for all the church. It’s expensive, but I really do recommend it to all. Actually, something this morning in chapel came from CH4.
Thanks, too, for the digital piece. The newest ELCA hymnal does consider such questions, and from what I here that committee even began their process not being certain a physical book would come out of it. The found, and I personally agree, that there’s a lot to the old fashioned technology of a printed book for congregation song. But, they, and we, worked hard on electronic resources. The screens/digital worship discussion is totally part and parcel of our remit, as I see it.
There will be more on the presbyterianhymnal.org in coming months and years so we can get as much insight as possible. We’re totally about hearing what folks think. Many thanks for the comments, and don’t make them your last
ps There will be a way to suggest specific hymns. Let’s see if we can beat the ELCA’s 10,000!