What's so hip about "Guide My Feet"?
The past few days I’ve been meeting with the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song in Louisville. It’s a formidable but fun group with whom it’s a joy to work. I’ll have a few more reflections going up in the next week or so, but this one I had actually been planning to write for a while.
It won’t be news to anyone that each worshiping community develops a kind of core to their congregational song repertoire. Some hymns, for identifiable reasons and un, are particularly popular in certain congregations. Obvious examples include hymns or songs written by members, or pieces commissioned for the congregation.
(A favorite song in Montreat is “Montreat How I Love You,” which is a camp favorite but, I dare say, not being considering for the hymnal.)
I’m not really sure why this is, but by far the most popular hymn for Columbia Seminary chapel services is the African-American spiritual “Guide My Feet”. Nobody keeps good records about this at CTS as far as I know, so I’m only claiming this as a frequent chapel attender, but I’m willing to say ‘“Guide My Feet” was the most-sung hymn in each of my three years at Columbia.’
Mostly, at Columbia, senior M.Div. students plan and lead chapel services for the community. Why, then, is “Guide My Feet” so popular? Who knows, but here’s a few possible reasons that come to mind.
- I’ll be generous with my first reason: “Guide My Feet” is just a very good hymn. It’s chosen often because of it’s high quality. There’s probably something to this. Though it’s a simple text, it’s one of very sound theology. While some hymns can be a bit wordy, or too showy, “Guide My Feet” gets right to the point: help us out God! The tune is catchy, easy to sing, and has a rich heritage. It also invites easy singing in harmony.
- Less generous second reason: the average musical skills of seminary students these days are not great. Many (most?) are not very comfortable reading music and they have been formed by congregations with fairly small core hymn repertoires. When this is the case, flipping through the hymnal is a daunting task — especially when one feels the hymns will be analyzed by students and professors alike. So, “Guide My Feet” becomes a comfortable, safe, and familiar choice. It looks good on the page, so students choose it.
- Third reason for right now: “Guide My Feet” has several verses, but they are simple repeated words and one does not need the have one’s face buried in the hymnal to sing. In fact, one barely needs the words written at all. Perhaps this gives worshipers a confidence to sing out, a comfort not to worry about the words. Knowing the words make the hymn easy not just to sing, but to pray.
So that’s a few thoughts on the popularity of “Guide My Feet” at Columbia Seminary. What’s the most popular song in your place of worship? Any ideas why?
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Aarrrgh! I get very conflicted over this stuff. The great classical hymns of the church may not always be easy to sing, and they may have too many verses with too many peculiar words, but they, for the most part, were written by serious theologians with something profound to say about what it means to follow Christ and worship God in heart, soul and mind. Some contemporary church music meets that standard, but not much. I humbly say this as a certified curmudgeon.
CP
Hmmm, I wouldn’t have guessed “Guide My Feet” as the most popular Columbia Seminary hymn. Interesting.
During the summer and fall, before student groups start to lead worship, I think “Here I Am, Lord” gets overused. The summer I was in Greek School, every local pastor or faculty member seemed to use it to affirm the new students in following their call. Got old really fast.
Conveniently, we just did a hymn survey at church in preparation for hymn sing Sunday this Sunday. “In the Garden” rose easily to the top of the list. It was interesting for me to tally the results, especially as I haven’t used “In the Garden” at all over the 8 months I’ve been at the church. Second place … “Here I Am, Lord.”
I haven’t had the luxury of attending chapel at Columbia for three years; I can only comment on the one Adam and I overlapped. From my experiences in chapel, I had expressed frustration at the number of times we sang “Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples of the Lord.” Like “Guide My Feet,” it was often the “sending” hymn at the end of the service.
Now, I think this hymn has some beautiful imagery, helps us in becoming more biblically literate, and has a good tune, but after singing it SOOO many times in the last year, I don’t think I will select it for a worship service I am asked to plan for at least five years. There are many great mission hymns in our blue hymnal (the beautiful blue book as my grandmother used to call it before her death); let’s try some others!
Thanks for your comments, folks. Don’t feel to curmudgeonly, Steven. Many a hymn writer have noted the recent move away from multi-verse hymns. Brian Wren won’t allow some hymnals to publish his multi-verse hymns if they edit some out.
@ Andrew and Emily; what irks me is that there is no record, no person monitoring what’s sung when. Shouldn’t someone be aware not only of what we sing multiple times, and what we never sing? Just a thought. (oh, though I guess I shouldn’t say “we” as I’m an alum now
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You got me thinking. Rather than write it all here, I turned it into a post at our blog. http://bmpcncmuz.blogspot.com/2009/06/music-planning.html
My reason for loving this hymn is slightly more personal, so perhaps less valid. I see my son every time I sing this song. He loves it so I love it. I appreciate that there is something in the hymnal that he can sing and enjoys singing.
Your post brings a whole lot of thoughts to my mind, many more that there is room for here. I am glad that you are finding your time with the committee stimulating, knowing some of the other people on the committee, you are in a great company.
At the church I attend, our former director of music took great interest in the hymns we sang, she kept an annotated hymnal listing the dates when we sang things. She began introducing many of the “new” hymns the came to be in the blue hymnal long before they reached the planning process for that book. We sang them as regular hymns, our choirs of all ages used them as choir music in worship and just as part of rehearsals. We also have a hymn sing beginning our summer services where people call out their favorites. Interestingly, the choices represent a very wide range of what is in the hymnal.
It is interesting how some hymns will make a strong connection with people. some years ago at the WEstminster PAM conference Tom Troeger talked about this. He drew three concentric circles on the board, like a bull’s eye. The outer area included all of the “new things being produced and sung. the center contained what he reffered to as the “GREAT HYMNS OF THE FAITH” There was also a group between these two and this I thought was the most interesting group of all.
The “GREAT HYMNS…” were those that have stood up to the winds of time and change, hymns that will be forever among the core expressions of our faith. The outer ones were the current, hip, music of the day. There was a good chance that many of these would never make it to the center, either very trendy or reflecting limited thoughts or ideas. The in between group were ones that had been around for a while, they has passed from being a fad to actually having some traction. Some of what he was seeing in this area frankly surprised him that they were there, he gave several examples of them at that time (it was about 11 years ago) Some he understood the emotional and theological connections people had for them, others he just found baffeling as to why they had hung around and why people connected to them. He left us wondering just what made a good piece of music to be sung in the church, not something that is easy to answer, but certianly worth the discussion. I suspect the hymnal committee will be doing a lot of the discussing as you work.
Last fall I had the opportunity to attend a hymn festival celebrating the anniversary of a church near me. They had polled the congregation for their favorite hymns and included them as well as chosing some hymns appropriate to various periods of the congregations history. The story of each hymn was told by someone in period attire speaking either as a pastor, the writer or composer, interesting idea. The high point of the evening was that the composer of our beloved “Here I am …” Dan Schutte, was there in person. He spoke of his amazement about the popularity of that piece. He told of how it was written for an ordination of deacons in the catholic order where he was at the time. A friend asked if he could write something for the service the next Saturday, it was already very late in the week and, “Oh, by the way we need to teach it to the choir the next night.”. When it was sung at the service, he figured that it was a one shot piece. He was not prepared for the response the piece released, and is still amazed today.
For many years this piece was requested by one of our older members simply because she said that it reflected how she had lived her life. She was female, black, highly educated and serving the church in ways that were not open to someone like her in the mid to later part of the last century. Can something be come over used, yes, we don’t sing this a lot in the hymn sings since she passed away, but when we do sing it, as we did this past Sunday, it is still a powerful time in our corperate worship.
I do agree with your reasons for “Guide My Feet” I think you have hit on some very important points as to why any hymn gains traction.
I know this comment’s a bit belated, but McCormick LOVES to sing “Welcome Table” at communion services. I’ll chalk its popularization up to the African-American Pentecostals, especially one professor with a penetrating baritone. “Welcome Table” shares with “Guide My Feet” quality, familiarity, and ease of use, and works cross-culturally, which is always a bonus at MTS. It further works well as a song during communion because it’s sung without hymnal, so we just keep repeating verses or calling out new ones if the line’s particularly long. There have been recent weddings of McCormick students where “Welcome Table” is sung, which exposes how McCormick-context-specific some of its attributes are – doesn’t work as well with white grandmas.
Adam,
have you done further reflections on the hymnal committee work and I missed it? How are things going?