"In the Bleak Midwinter," Old Hat or Cutting-Edge?
Let me indulge in some quick Presbyterian polity to get at some deep worship conundrums.
I’ve always been intrigued that the Presbytery Book of Order states that the minister as pastor has some responsibilities “not subject to the authority of the session” including choosing “the music to be sung in worship” (W-1.4005). And then, on the next page, the Book or Order states that hymnals should be chosen by the session with the concurrence of the pastor (W-1.4006).
I bet there’s been a congregation or two whose session selected a hymnal just to get a pastor’s goat, and the pastor then consistently chose hymns from another hymnal to get them back! That’s all to say: choosing hymns is a tricky business.
I’m a big hymn guy and enjoy singing in worship and leading people in congregational song. It’s a joy to choose music for our congregation to sing. But, even after almost several months into my call, it’s not getting any easier. In fact, it’s one of the most difficult things I do all week.
Take, for example, the hymn “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti c. 1872. I happen to know that about 2/3rds of PC(USA) congregations sang the hymn last year. More than 80% of respondents to a survey soon to be released by the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song said the hymn should be included in the next Presbyterian hymnal. The hymn appears in eight hymnals published in the last thirty years and twenty-two hymnals published prior.
Herbert Brokering calls the hymn a “well-known and well-loved Advent hymn” in his Advent meditation book called, of all things, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” I’ve had the hymn memorized for almost half my life now, as it closed every high school chorus concert. Later, as a singer in the St. Olaf Choir, we took an an anthem arrangement on tour all over the U.S.
All that said, truth be told, I don’t really care for the hymn. It’s a bit sentimental, too romantic for my taste. That’s not to say it’s not a classic and deserves to continue its long run as a Christmas favorite, it’s just not a hymn I really look forward to singing.
So, at a worship committee meeting last week I popped the question. “What are you favorite Christmas hymns?” “We love them all” was the consensus answer. Fair enough. It’s hard to choose. But when I asked about “In the Bleak Midwinter,” I was met with stares. I played a recording on my laptop. Nobody knew the hymn.
It’s totally fine with me not to sing the hymn this Christmas season in Hallock, but the experience highlights how difficult it is for a pastor to choose hymns for a congregation to sing without knowing everyone’s personal hymn-singing experience. We generally sing three hymns a service, and I never put more than one new hymn in a service. So I’ll often mix in two older texts from the 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal, then have a newer piece as a bulletin insert from a recent worship resource. But, other than the absolute classics, it’s very hard to say if the older hymns are actually well-known in my context. Of course, I check with folks and ask around, that’s the only way to do it, but it ain’t easy. Assumptions cannot be made.
I suppose we could go through every bulletin of the last ten years an write down what hymns have been sung, but I rather listen to nails on a chalk board all day. Since last year, thank goodness, we’ve been recording each time a hymn is sung in a master hymnal so future worship leaders will have idea of what’s been sung when. I’m more than happy to continue the practice.
When beginning my first call I didn’t think choosing hymns would be so difficult. It’s a joy, but it also highlights how difficult it is to get to know a congregation. I’m considering some sort of hymn survey in the new year. I’d love to hear your thoughts. How does your congregation chose its worship music? Do you love “In the Bleak Midwinter”? What’s the best way to keep records of what’s been sung when?
image by Hanna Zabielska
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When I pastored a small church in Michigan, I assumed that there was a common PCUSA familiar hymn category. I assumed the hymns I had grown up with were the ones they had sung somewhere along the way. What I considered to be well known hymns were completely unknown to them. Their interim just before I came purchased a horrible hymnal (he bought half; the congregation bought the other half). We didn’t have the “new” PCUSA hymnal, so I did a lot of inserts.
One of my great experiences here was planning a funeral for a 90 year old woman. She wanted God of the Sparrow and Here I Am Lord (and not In the Garden, praise Jesus). Our 70 something worship committee chair insisted that we sing Canticle of the Turning (which I introduced) sometime this month. So, to everyone who says we should sing mostly the “old” hymns, like you, I’m not sure what the “old” hymns are.
I’m a HUGE fan of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Although the last verse about giving my heart is a bit drummer boy-ish.
Whenever I look at prayers and religious poetry from that period, there are very few women, except for Rossetti. She’s a vital female literary figure and should be kept in the hymnal.
Plus the language is exceptional in it: “frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.”
Of course, you could make it edgier by re-inserting her original lines, “Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay.”
What is the male-to-female ratio of hymn writers? Please don’t make it worse by taking away this extremely important woman’s voice.
Thanks, Carol. Don’t worry, I’m not “taking away” anything but just not adding it to our congregation’s already full repertoire already — at least not this year. And this is just me speaking re my particular congregation, I definitely think the hymn should be available for the Church. Your female hymn writer question is a good one. There were some famous ones, but surely outnumbered. I’ll look for more on that in the future.
But maybe my big issue with the hymn is that, historically-speaking, the “winter” in which Jesus was born had no snow or moaning wind. And “giving my heart” just feels so simplistic. But, I suppose, that’s aesthetics. Thanks for the comments!
On my list of things I procrastinate on in the ministry, selecting of hymns tops the list. It sure is hard to know what is familiar to people.
A wonderful way that I quickly learned their favorites was to have a favorite hymn and scripture Sunday. I asked people to recommend their favorites that they would want to sing and that service is ALL music and scripture …. we even use music for our prayers of confession and scripture as our assurance of pardon. It was an easy way to learn about favorites.
But hymns sure do speak to our theology and what it implies about who we are. I spend a lot of time each week picking hymns to compliment the scripture and my overall theme for worship. I just don’t understand pastors who just pick “whatever” even if it does not connect.
When I told my dad about congregation members complaining about wanting to sing the “old, familiar” music (meaning, “out of the old, RED hymnal”) he said, “Well, the old familiar hymns were new to them when they learned them!”
In that congregation I handed out cards at the beginning of the summer, requesting everyone’s top 3 favorites. I put all the results into a spread sheet and sorted out those that were in both hymnals. )Turns out only FIVE of the faves were only in the old red book.) Then we intentionally used those hit parade hymns throughout the summer. During the rest of the year, I consulted that list and used whatever was appropriate whenever I could.
This might work to help everyone have a shared list, and might help you with some idea of the standards that fall into their “familiar” category.
One Sunday, I grudgingly picked an old song from “Sing the Faith” that I can’t stand. But it went with the service, and I thought it would make everyone happy. The organist came to me with deep concern: “We’ll try this, but none of us has ever heard it.” To my great joy, we just left the song out.
People seem to think there exists such a thing as a “familiar hymn” that everyone, everywhere- well at least all the Lutherans (could easily sub Presbyterians) knows. It’s the headache of the first few months of the call! But, I also really want folks to move beyond the “known” songs to hear the gospel- and law- of some “new” songs.
Personally, I love “In the Bleak Midwinter”- we had an Advent Devotional based on the hymn by Herbert Brokering… never got through it all because we left it at my folks’ some years back…
I worked at an Episcopal church while in graduate school and it was the first time I was responsible for picking hymns. I had no help on what they knew, I didn’t know the hymnal that well (1940 Hymnal), I was just learning the 3-year lectionary, and I always picked the wrong ones! My first Easter there, I failed to pick “Hail Thee, Festival Day,” and really caught it! We didn’t sing it in the Presbyterian church I grew up in!
Now, my favorite chore of the week is picking hymns – most weeks I pick the hymns based on what we know about texts chosen for attention (occasionally Vicki does it) and we run them by our pastor for his OK. Sometimes we give him some options when we are uncertain as to the drift he may be taking, and on the rare occasion he wants a change.
There are probably more sophisticated ways of keeping tabs, but we just have a Word document that we add the dates to the list of hymn numbers from the 1990, then have at the bottom a list of hymns in alphabetical order from other sources.
As far as “In the Bleak Mid-Winter,” I’ve always thought of it more as a choir piece than congregational number, and these days, as the Christian world is shifting to the southern hemisphere, it begins to be odd to place Christmas in such a Euro-centric world.
Now I know that In the Bleak Midwinter is sentimental and combines western, romantic notions of Christmas with the actual incarnation story. I still love it. Lines like “heav’n cannot hold him nor earth proclaim, heav’n and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign” going from that into a description of the “Lord God incarnate” captures our remembrance of what God has done in Christ and points us in apocalyptic expectation of his coming again.
And I know the last verse is hokey and sounds like “all we need to do is give our heart to Jesus,” but when I sing this hymn I have the last verse of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” running through my head. Giving our incarnated Lord our heart is akin to “love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.” Plus, it never hurts Presbyterians to remember that the heart is as important as the mind in our faith life…
I’m in my first call, and did not grow up in the Presbyterian Church. Here we have occasional worship committee meetings which include a sheet from me regarding which Scripture(s) I plan to preach and the theme. After reading the Scripture, the two or three others in the committee suggest the opening and closing hymns, as well as any special music.
Our organist/choir director is part of the committee, and then has a list of what is planned for upcoming Sundays – which helps with choosing of appropriate anthems. I choose the hymn of response – which is usually rather easy – something which I am reminded of and singing at some point during sermon preparation.
I don’t always go with the recommended open and closing hymns – quite often the closing hymn gets changed, and like this week, I’m adding a hymn during the offering (rather than have the organist play so that people don’t have to hold hymnbooks and pass the plate at the same time – which I don’t understand, but it seems to be the expected practice here).
I’m wondering how long until the new hymnal will be ready. We have the 1990 hymnal but would really like a newer one asap. We’ve had a donation to buy a new hymnal – and it’s been sitting there for a year or two already. I like “Worship and Rejoice” by Hope Publishing – easy to read, includes some more contemporary hymns, etc.
Adam, I use a worship resource by Dean McIntyre. It references the UMC hymnal but follows the lectionary so I just go to our hymnal and write in the appropriate numbers. As far as new hymns I’ve learned not to put any in too often but that once a month is okay. After five years they are learning that I like to try new songs that help us think in a new way about the scripture lessons.
There hasn’t been a Presbyterian hymnal used here since the red hymnal. I think it is because a large contingent of Methodist joined the congregation in the 50′s and they just weren’t familiar with the Presbyterian hymns.
Thanks for all the comments, folks. It’s fun to hear your perspectives. @DennisS, the next PC(USA) hymnal will be out in around three short years (2013) and the list of songs will, hopefully, be made public as early as 2012. I know it might be hard, but I’d encourage you to wait! The wait will be worth it.
“Giving my heart” may be simplistic Adam, but in the end that’s what counts…or did you miss that in NT studies?
BTW, the Rosetti’s used to stay at a lodging house near Maybole (my previous parish) in the winter. A waterfall on the road is still called Rosetti’s Lynn (Scottish word for waterfall) today.
I thought I was picking “old, familiar hymns” too. But people were quick to point out to me -usually in the receiving line after church – when I had included something new or unusual or difficult to sing.
We had 2 hymn sing Sundays this summer. For three weeks in May we had an insert in the bulletin asking for the people’s fave 3 hymns. The results have been helpful for me. Some that I expected, others that I was surprised by.
Another pastor suggested to me giving a copy of the hymnal to the organist or choir director and having him or her mark all the hymns the congregation knows. I think I’ve been here too long to do that now, but a good suggestion.
The pastor who supervised me in my internship had a similar problem, and started a hymnsing every week to deal with it. The hymnsing is now a beloved part of the service… it starts ten minutes before the service, and we only sing first verses. Those who don’t want to sing “i come to the garden alone” every single week simply walk in later (at 11 when service starts, proper, with a moment of silent meditation). This way no one gets mad that the pastor doesn’t know to choose their favorite hymsn.