In the July–August issue of Worship the Lord, Pastor Jonathan Schroeder offers a survey of the new Christian Worship lectionary. Please note that Year C planning tools are available to assist those congregations who will be planning ahead to use the new hymnal coming in late 2021.
Now available as part of Christian Worship: Preview is a set of expanded resources to support the preview and introduction of Christian Worship: Psalter. A downloadable PDF Psalter Preview provides a look at two dozen settings from the upcoming Psalter. Two video introductions are also available. One video covers the topic of introducing and using Christian Worship: Psalter in the congregational setting. Another video covers the topic of introducing and using Christian Worship: Psalter in the home.
Visit the Psalms preview and the two videos below.
In the March 2021 issue of Worship the Lord, WELS Hymnal Project Director Michael Schultz provides a summary of the numerous accompaniment options available for the new Christian Worship.
In the January 2021 issue of Worship the Lord, Pastor Jonathan Bauer explains how the new Christian Worship will benefit the outreach efforts of WELS congregations.
The May–June 2021 edition of Worship the Lord featured numerous ways that congregations are already adopting the Christian Worship suite of worship resources, including the new pew edition hymnal. The issue of Worship the Lord is available as a PDF download by clicking or tapping the button below.
Prof. Jon Micheel has prepared a written overview of the wedding rite to be published in the new Christian Worship. A PDF copy of the resource is available by clicking or tapping the button below.
The WELS Hymnal Project is pleased to provide several new preview resources as part of the introduction of Christian Worship to WELS. The following items have been added to the existing materials available on the Resources page of the Christian Worship website. For your convenience, you may also access these new resources by clicking or tapping the links below.
Christian Worship: Hymn Preview offers a look at more than 50 of the new and updated hymns included in Christian Worship: Hymnal.
A Liturgical Philosophy for Christian Worship is a written documentation of the general approach to liturgical rites that guided decision-making about the rites included in Christian Worship.
For Us and for Our Salvation is a summary of the translation of the Nicene Creed in Christian Worship.
There Is Room in the Choir covers the hymn selection criteria used to prepare a hymns list that is both comprehensive in scope and Christ-centered in content.
The Tentative Hymn List is a complete documentation of the hymns planned for inclusion in Christian Worship: Hymnal. Three formats of the same document are available, PDF, RTF, and XLSX.
The Cut and Retuned Hymn List is a complete documentation of the hymns from the 1993 Christian Worship and from the 2008 Christian Worship: Supplement that have been cut or set to a different tune.
NPH is providing a preview package for use in congregations during the 2021 lenten season.
This preliminary draft of an article to appear in a future issue of Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly is provided by its author, Rev. Earle Treptow, President of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. The article covers the translation choices made concerning the Nicene Creed in the upcoming edition of Christian Worship. Use the button below to download the resource as a PDF.
This article by Prof. Aaron Christie, published in Worship the Lord, provides an overview of how the WELS Hymnal Project worked to provide a list of hymns that is comprehensive in scope and Christ-centered in content. Use the button below to download the resource as a PDF.
Prof. James Tiefel documents the liturgical philosophy that shaped the liturgical materials included in Christian Worship: Hymnal. The resource will of interest to those who are curious to learn more about the overall rubric that guided decision-making by the WELS Hymnal Project Executive Committee. Use the button below to download the resource as a PDF.
The following article has been prepared by the WELS Hymnal Project as a useful resource offering an overview of The Service as it will appear in the upcoming edition of Christian Worship: Hymnal. Use the button below to download the resource as a PDF.
The following article was published in the September 2020 edition of Worship the Lord, the bimonthly publication of the WELS Commission on Worship. Pastor Adam Mueller offers a detailed look at what is coming in the new hymnal resources. Use the button below to download the article as a PDF.
This article is chapter one from the forthcoming Christian Worship: Foundations, a companion volume to the new WELS hymnal. This volume is a pastor’s manual that provides rationale for the services in the new hymnal. The chapter attached below was printed in the Spring 2020 issue of Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly.
Research during development of the new hymnal indicated that the future of hard bound hymnals in hymnal pew racks continues to be very strong. There remains a desire both in WELS and in other denominations for continued use of hymnal books. What are the respective benefits of using the hymnal and using a worship folder?
First it’s worth noting that most congregations still prefer to sing hymns from hymnals rather than from a worship folder or via projection even if the rest of the service is from a worship folder. One reason for this is the ability to sing in harmony. Christian Worship: Service Builder, like the digital versions of our current hymnal and supplement, provides only the melody line for hymns. One of the strongest goals for music in the new hymnal is that it be a “singer’s book.” Far more of the hymns than in the 1993 hymnal are singable in harmony.
(There’s still a place for creative accompaniments, used judiciously. These are available in the accompaniment edition for hymns, in Christian Worship: Musician’s Resource, and from various publishers.)
Another reason for hymnals is the message they send — that a church’s primary worship resources have been carefully curated. They represent a church body’s worship ideals and standards. The orders of service and hymns are much more than something a creative pastor put together during the week.
The WELS Commission on Evangelism once produced “Welcoming Worship.” That resource advised: “Put a hymnal in the hand of every worshipper for two reasons: because it shows we are part of a body larger than our congregation, and because the hymnal has great benefit as the prayer book of the people. So the order of service is in the service folder in its entirety, but the hymns are sung from the hymnal.” You can read more on page 4 here.
Are there times not to print the entire order of service? Yes — if a given service is used as printed, without jumping around to other variety, with no choir/solo texts to include, when visitors are not expected.
Are there times to include hymns in the worship folder? Yes — perhaps for festivals or when detailed instructions for singing a hymn are needed (2: men, 3: women, 4: choir, etc).
The thoughts above lead to the conclusion that most congregations will want both hymnals and Christian Worship: Service Builder. Both resources provide unique value for a congregation’s worship life.
Some additional thoughts follow not only on hymnals in the pew but also in the Lutheran Elementary School and for personal use. These may be useful for discussion by church leaders.
Church Use Benefits
A printed hymnal speaks to the dignity and importance of corporate worship.
The hymnal has the complete setting of the music (except for a handful of hymns that are tune-only, and most liturgies).
If only the lyrics or lyrics and melody are printed in a bulletin, some worshipers can still use the hymnal to sing harmony.
The hymnal includes resources not necessarily found in a printed bulletin: personal prayers before worship or communion, preparation for communion, etc.
The story of the church year is communicated throughout the pages of the hymnal — in the calendar of the church year, the lectionary, and the ordering of the hymns.
A hymnal allows worshipers a) to reflect on a hymn’s text when pre-service or distribution music features hymn tunes without words, and b) to cross-reference and reflect as thoughts, passages, and themes come to mind.
The hymnal’s content is not a fleeting commodity like so much digital content. It is a carefully curated resource of materials spanning history. It is meant to be explored and to serve the worship needs of a church for decades, providing church members with a sense of permanence.
Introducing two new hymns per month will result in eight years’ worth of new hymns from the book. It will be like unwrapping a new gift month after month and year after year. (Two new tunes per month would be too much in many congregations, but some new texts are set to familiar tunes.)
School Use Benefits
The new Hymns for Life school curriculum coordinates with the new Christian Worship Hymnal. Children will grow up learning from the hymnal, and it will remain familiar and treasured into their adult lives.
A hymnal is as important as any other textbook, and even more so.
With printed hymnals, a teacher can more easily extend into teaching worship in general: liturgies and rites, prayers, psalms, devotional life, etc.
Hymnals provide greater flexibility in the classroom if needed. For example, referencing a hymn to answer a question during a religion lesson, using a hymn to sing in place of a scheduled prayer time.
The hymnal provides a resource for learning basic music skills (note reading, harmony, keyboard accompaniment) as well as other concepts including use of indexes, citations and copyrights, poetry, translations, etc.
Using hymnals in school reinforces use within church. When students are learning about hymns in school, they are learning from the same book they will use in church.
Utilizing a printed hymnal in the classroom reinforces its importance as a resource applicable throughout life: school, church, home.
Personal Use Benefits
A hymnal provides an opportunity for personal worship preparation or reflection.
The new hymnal is more devotional than the previous hymnal by providing practical and contemplative resources. Scripture references for each hymn have been restored. The printed hymnal includes the text of Luther’s catechism, Christian Questions for those about to attend the Lord’s Supper, and a daily lectionary Bible reading schedule.
The hymnal is designed to encourage family worship in the morning, at night, or around the dinner table.
A personal hymnal provides an opportunity for family instruction (a reference when children have questions about what they sang or did in worship, to expand on what was sung or said in worship, or to prepare for upcoming worship).
The printed hymnal maintains the practice and tradition of giving the hymnal as a confirmation or graduation gift.
Other Benefits
Curation, the careful selection and ordering of hymns is best revealed in the printed hymnal. Over 100 of our fellow Christians spent eight years selecting the best options from thousands of choices to develop a cohesive and meaningful body of worship resources. In many cases texts were edited for greater doctrinal precision, clarity of meaning, or quality of poetry.
The German term Lokalgedächtnis means remembering things by their location on the page. This is true of all books (Bibles, children’s storybooks). You get familiar with hymns from seeing them on the page the same way every time; they do not move, they are not reformatted. There is value in the familiarity, consistency, and sense of reliability that comes from a printed hymnal.
Printed hymnals convey a sense of permanence. As Keith Getty has been in the habit of saying, “Good solid hymns are hymns we want to be around for 50 years, not 50 months.”
As people of the Word we know that, biblically speaking, names matter quite a lot. We are familiar with biblical names communicating something about the person carrying the name. We stand in awe of the mystery of God’s own name. We know about God putting his name on us in blessing. We cherish names like “Immanuel” and, of course, “Jesus.” God’s messengers always made it quite clear that such names really make a difference because they reflect the person being named.
The team that took up the task of proposing the name of the new hymnal was happy to take a similar approach to naming. For several years, dozens of people had been working to develop a suite of resources that would accomplish the overall mission of the project: to confess Jesus Christ and enable believers to receive the blessings of the means of grace in the faithful life of their local congregation. The new hymnal’s name needed to reflect the nature and purpose of that work and its published result.
I won’t belabor the details, but I can say that the team worked through a thorough exercise of answering questions about the name and, more broadly, the total identity of the hymnal. We considered the mission of the project, the Lutheran theological convictions embedded in the project, the faith-building benefits of the project that we anticipate under the Lord’s blessing, and the best ways to communicate all these things to the diverse range of people we pray will benefit from the project.
At the end of this process we weighed the naming options. We explored the possibility of selecting an entirely new name for the hymnal, but quickly realized that the best name for the new hymnal is to keep the same name. The proposal was fleshed out further and submitted to the Executive Committee for review and ultimately adoption. The new hymnal will share a name with its predecessor: Christian Worship.
This might seem like a fairly obvious decision. Indeed, that’s often a good sign that a solution is an elegant one. No doubt you can intuitively sense several of the benefits that come from retaining the Christian Worship name. Here are several that we consider worth mentioning.
Christian Worship is a name already well-known and well-respected among us. Someone observed that when the 1993 edition of Christian Worship was released our church body was, broadly speaking, quite ready to replace the hymnal’s predecessor, The Lutheran Hymnal. In the early 1990s, a new name made good sense as a way to communicate the newness of the project. It was after all, the first new hymnal from WELS. But in the case of the 2021 edition of Christian Worship, our church body has never quite felt as if the 1993 hymnal were in dire need of replacement. Yet this was by design. The goal of our synod since the 1993 hymnal was to not allow our hymnal to reach a point that worshipers were clamoring for a replacement. The new hymnal is a continuation of a long tradition of worship. The Christian Worship name means a lot, says a lot, and does a lot — it makes good sense to keep using it.
Christian Worship is a name versatile enough to match a versatile suite of resources. A practical problem we faced when reviewing the list of potential names for the hymnal was this: the new hymnal project was producing far more than just a hymnal. We have a hymnal, yes, but also a psalter, a service builder, a lectionary, a commentary, a musicians resource, and several volumes of support material. Words like “hymnal” and “service book” weren’t quite versatile enough for the scope of the project. The Christian Worship name, on the other hand, allows these various and versatile resources to be drawn together under a single name to communicate a unifying mission. Christian Worship: Hymnal works hand in hand with Christian Worship: Psalter and Christian Worship: Service Builder. All these publications give congregations rich resources to support the work of bringing the means of grace to the people of Christ.
Christian Worship is a name that reflects our continued tradition. The goal of the new hymnal project was never to create something new out of whole cloth. Christian Worship is a tradition, not a flash in the pan. The faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people is still handed down from one generation to the next. We believe that keeping the name Christian Worship reflects the continuity of tradition that we cherish as Lutheran worshipers. Yet there is still much that is revised, improved, and outright new in the hymnal. Such newness is easily seen in the new design of the hymnal and the updated version of the beloved chi-rho logo. We rely on those elements to communicate the welcome freshness, and we rely on the name to communicate the welcome continuity.
Christian Worship is a name that communicates the centrality of the gospel. Both the name and the logo of the 1993 hymnal were deliberately chosen to reflect the centrality of Christ in our worship. The goal of the new hymnal is the same as its predecessor: to reflect in everything the good news of God’s love and salvation in Jesus Christ. We were hard pressed to find a name that better communicated the centrality of Christ and his gospel than Christian Worship.
We in WELS are a relatively small part of Christ’s kingdom. Decades ago we set out to accomplish a task that many thought was improbable for a denomination of modest means. Yet, with God’s blessing, WELS produced a hymnal that not only replaced a cherished worship resource but also became as well-loved as its predecessor. We now have the opportunity to build on that achievement and solidify our legacy as a Lutheran church body that produces and values excellent, Christ-centered worship.
The interest and expertise from dozens of musicians, scholars, pastors, teachers, students, and worshipers across the church body have combined with the availability of modern tools and technology to produce a set of well-curated resources that proclaim the gospel clearly and are readily accessible in a variety of formats.
All of this work, together with the support of our synod congregations, ensures that the valuable legacy of Christian worship is not only preserved but enhanced for generations to come. Christian Worship is the name we give to the resources that support this vital task.
Sometimes you find yourself in the right place at the right time.
I was a sophomore at Northwestern College when LCMS published Worship Supplement in 1969. The college wasn’t much interested back then, but I was, especially in the new hymns which are well-known to us 50 years later. By the time I arrived at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, copies of Worship Supplement were in the chapel pews, and Prof. Martin Albrecht, who also chaired the Commission on Worship, introduced some of the little book’s liturgical innovations. Assignment day in 1976 sent me to St. Paul, Saginaw, and hymnals were in the news. Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) was in publication mode, and LCMS conservatives were thundering opposition. The conservatives won, and Missouri published Lutheran Worship in 1982. I chaired a district committee instructed by the Commission on Worship to study the feasibility of using LW in WELS. That idea was pretty much a non-starter, but I got to know LBW and LW pretty well.
The Commission was ready to recommend to the 1983 synod convention that WELS produce its own hymnal. My associate at St. Paul, Forrest Bivens, was appointed to chair the floor committee that would study and propose the recommendation. Via lengthy phone calls, Kurt Eggert and Martin Albrecht prepared him for the convention, and he shared information with me.
The recommendation was approved, and Kurt Eggert was called as project director. One of his tasks was to form a committee. The Commission on Worship was seeking geographical representation, and I was appointed to represent the Michigan District. I didn’t represent my geography for long, however, but was called to succeed Martin Albrecht at the seminary in 1985. In 1987 I was appointed to the WELS Commission on Worship.
I was one of three “under-40” members of the 17-member hymnal committee. All the others had served long and faithfully in WELS schools and congregations. Despite differences in age, experience, and social connections, we got along with one another and worked together well; everyone contributed. The 17 members divided into four committees, so committees were small. We met as one subcommittee or another almost every month and always face-to-face or in written correspondence. We worked only on paper—lots of paper in coded colors.
By far the greatest challenge the Joint Hymnal Committee faced was preparing a hymnal for the 21st century that would replace a hymnal firmly planted in the 19th century. We needed to move forward without abandoning the heritage of The Lutheran Hymnal. We spent long hours working through language issues (thee or you), inclusive language (sons or saints), where and how to expand the hymn corpus (gospel hymns and spirituals). Field testing was a vital component of the work; so was answering criticism and responding to charges of heresy.
WELS was ready for a new hymnal. The introduction program was highly successful and was commended by several non-WELS denominations. Within a year or two, 98% of WELS congregations were using the new book, Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal.
Back at the seminary, it was my job to help students and WELS members in general use the materials they were seeing in the book. Responsive psalmody, pastoral chant, and the full use of Morning Praise and Evening Prayer became common in the seminary chapel. The growing worship awareness stood behind the change from the black Geneva robe to alb and stole and prompted the use of alternate worship instruments. I contributed 136 pages to Christian Worship Manual (Worship in Theology and Practice). Working with others I prepared two video-enhanced worship education products and created the National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts. I was deeply involved with the Commission’s Schools of Worship Enrichment and Institute on Worship and Outreach.
At a certain point, I set creative hymnal work aside. I didn’t participate in the creation of Christian Worship: New Service Settings, Christian Worship Altar Book, or Christian Worship: Occasional Services although I introduced their materials at the seminary and at worship conferences. I passed on participating in Christian Worship: Supplement, although I was asked to review content and obliged. I turned 60 in 2009, and I was ready to step aside and let the younger men take over. I resigned from the Commission on Worship in 2013.
Michael Schultz was in my first seminary class in 1985. Since he was a Michigan boy and since his dad and I had become good friends, Mike and I also became friends during his student days and as he served in Arizona and Georgia. I wasn’t close enough to the Supplement effort to have noticed his good work, and he wasn’t my first choice to head up a new hymnal project. He took on the task, however, and soon called me with the question: “What would you like to do?” My reply was, “I think I should do something, but nothing that takes too much work.” He appointed me as a member-at-large on the Executive Committee and as advisor to the Rites Committee. So much for not-too-much-work!
So now, I’ve had an opportunity to be involved in a second hymnal project. The basic tasks are similar but the administration of the tasks is very, very different. Like in 1985, there is a decision-making committee, the Executive Committee (XC), composed of seven committee chairman, two members-at-large, and three administrators. Unlike in 1985, XC members have not divided themselves into small committees; each committee chairman works with his own committee composed of a half dozen or so men and women. More than 70 people were directly in planning. Only the XC gathers exclusively in face-to-face meetings. Other committees meet most often via digital video conferences. PDFs and Google Docs have replaced paper. Correspondence is by email and digital project management websites. And instead of being one of the young punks of the committee, I am now its old man! Despite differences in age, experience, and social connections, we get along with one another and work together well. Everyone contributes, no one lacks a voice, and most know how to use it!
So how do the two projects compare? I have told the brothers that this committee is more fun than the last committee—all but two were my students at the seminary and all sang in the Seminary Chorus. We have had fun before! I do believe that the era which has passed since the publication of the 1993 hymnal has enabled these men to gain knowledge and experience that is deeper and wider than the previous committee had. This group has an outreach spirit which the other group could not have had. Only a few on the XC have recollections of TLH but all have a respect for the historic legacy of liturgics and hymnody that was not as keen on the last committee. This group has not been afraid to move back from 1985 decisions that may have pushed the envelope too far. This sensitivity blends smoothly with the general acceptance of alternative instruments and the possibilities of digital resources. Their efforts provide an example of how the church builds on the experience of the past as it moves confidently into the future.
I mentioned all these factors as I gave a little speech at the XC’s last meeting in November. I finally said, “Now you have to sell it.” I wonder if this will not be the biggest challenge this project faces. Many WELS members consider the 1993 hymnal to be “the new hymnal” and wonder why we need a second new hymnal now. Some will suggest that digital resources make the purchase of books unnecessary—if you print everything in the bulletin why put books in the pews? Perhaps the most serious of these “sell” challenges will come because a growing number of WELS congregations have lost sight of or interest in the liturgical legacy of Lutheran worship. Claiming mission-mindedness (and ignoring the reality that the members of the hymnal committees have a mission-mindedness surely equal to theirs), too many pastors and congregations are abandoning the liturgical rite, confessional hymnody, and the church year and lectionary for a worship style they sense will appeal to the seeker on the street. In this, we dare say, they overlook the reality that genuine seekers are looking for the truth which they have not found in other churches, the truth that Lutheran worship so magnificently proclaims.
As the hymns committee began its search for the 200 or so new hymns that will be included in the next hymnal, that search included scouring dozens of published hymnals from all corners of English-speaking Christianity. As a result, when we speak about the “new” hymns that will appear in our next hymnal, we mean hymns that will be new to us. In some cases they are also new in the sense of having been written rather recently. In some cases they have been around for decades or more.
In addition to searching these published hymn collections, we also searched the music that has been produced in recent years within wider English-speaking Christianity, including what is often referred to as Christian contemporary music. We searched artists’ and publishers’ websites. We asked for song lists and recommendations from congregations who regularly use this type of music. Hundreds of songs were looked at, and eventually about 150 were presented to the hymns committee for their review. Of that 150, roughly 50 were presented to the project’s executive committee for their review.
A variety of different reasons could be given for making such a search. But the most important one starts with a very simple assumption, the same assumption that lies at the heart of our church body’s decision to publish a new hymnal in the first place. That assumption is that the Holy Spirit continues to give good gifts to Christ’s Church for the carrying out of its mission. Those gifts didn’t stop in 1524 with the publishing of the first Lutheran hymnal. They didn’t stop in 1993 with the publishing of Christian Worship. They aren’t restricted to any specific generation or denomination. Until Christ comes back, we should expect the Holy Spirit to continue to bless us with gifted poets and composers who put the beautiful truths of the gospel to poetry and music. And if that’s the case, it’s only natural that we would try to identify all of the gifts that could be of benefit to the gospel ministry of our church body’s congregations and schools.
So what did we find? Having been heavily involved in the search described above, I’d like to offer a few reflections.
It’s easy for any evaluation of modern Christian music to be carried out on a pass/fail basis. In other words, the goal is simply to determine whether a song is acceptable for use in our worship or not. Under such a pass/fail approach, the primary focus would naturally be on the words of the song in question.
While this is certainly the place to start and while there are certainly songs that we would conclude are unacceptable for use in our church body, a helpful evaluation goes much further than this. The contents of a generational, denominational resource like a hymnal are selected on the basis of specific priorities. In contrast, much of so-called contemporary music, while not unacceptable for worship, is nonetheless created with very different priorities.
In some cases, the difference in priorities is textual. Our hymnal project is looking for songs whose words proclaim biblical truth in general and gospel comfort in particular. In contrast, many songs are written not primarily to proclaim biblical truth but to give expression to the Christian’s response to that truth.
In some cases the difference in priorities relates to congregational participation. A hymnal is a worship resource designed to be put in the hands of an assembly and used together by that assembly. Words and music are placed side by side so that the collective assembly has everything it needs to be able to proclaim the gospel in song together. In contrast, many songs are written to be performed for an assembly rather than produced by an assembly. Even though the assembly may be able to participate, this ability would come only after hearing the song a good number of times so that the melody is known by heart. If the musical notes of the song were to be displayed to the people at all, they would be more of a hindrance than a help.
Finally, in some cases, the difference in priorities relates to intended shelf life. A hymnal is a curated set of songs meant to serve an entire generation of worshipers. Its inherent expectation is that most of the hymns included have a shelf life of at least a generation. Additionally, a hymnal passes on to future generations a good number of hymns that centuries of worshipers have found worthy of use and adds our assessment to theirs. In contrast, many songs are written to catch on quickly but wear out just as quickly in order to make way for a new set of songs that will do the same. During our search among Christian contemporary music, it occurred to me that if we were to tell one of these artists that we were going to take one of their songs, publish it in a hymnal, and twenty-five years from now plan to still be teaching it to people who have never heard it before, their response might be, “Now why would you go and do something like that?” For comparison’s sake, imagine if our current hymnal were full of Christian songs that were popular back in 1991. As much as those Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith albums were well-loved back then, I’m not sure they’d be getting much use today. For many songs, publication in a generational, denominational resource isn’t in keeping with their purpose.
All of that said, even when a song is evaluated on the basis of the various priorities inherent with a hymnal project, it’s still impossible to evaluate each song on a pass/fail basis. Rather, songs meet these priorities in varying degrees. This is true even of songs written in a rather traditional hymnic style. Some hymns proclaim gospel comfort better than others. Some include more of the believer’s heartfelt response to that gospel. Some hymns are readily singable by almost any assembly. Others are more difficult to sing or almost require vocal leadership. Some hymns are sturdy enough to last for generations. Others catch on quickly but likely will not be sung fifty years from now.
Even though much of the Christian music being produced for popular consumption today has different priorities than those of a hymnal project, that rule is not without exception. As I searched through list after list and website after website, it was great to see how many artists today are committed to producing music whose priorities match ours: music that clearly proclaims the gospel, music designed to encourage participation by the assembly, and music designed to have some staying power.
As a result, our next hymnal will include some songs that we believe worshipers will find lively and upbeat. It will include songs whose sound and poetry are fresh and relevant to today’s generation of Christians. However, there won’t be a batch of songs that is clearly different from all the rest. They won’t be relegated to their own section with their own heading, “Contemporary,” if such a thing were even possible. If you didn’t look at the bottom of the page to see when the hymn was written and by whom, you might not even realize that a particular song is considered “contemporary,” just like a person might listen to Koine’s setting of “Salvation Unto Us Has Come,” and have no idea that it was part of that first Lutheran hymnal published in 1524.
It’s not as if there’s this clearly defined line where one leaves the world of hymnody and enters the world of Christian contemporary music. Instead, most songs meet the criteria that differentiate those two genres in a wide variety of degrees.
As a result, while the search may have been tedious and while a great deal of the music we considered doesn’t fit with the priorities of a hymnal project, the search was worth the effort.
Our hymnal project has the priorities it has not simply because it happens to be a hymnal project. Rather, we have those priorities because we are convinced they are beneficial for God’s people as they gather for worship. Songs that focus on the believer’s response to God’s love have their place. But it’s good to have an overall diet of hymnody that puts the focus on gospel truth so that our confidence continues to be grounded in God’s work for us rather than on how that work happens to make us feel in the moment. Songs that catch on and wear out quickly can be valuable. But something just as valuable might be lost if a believer spends their entire lifetime learning a completely new set of songs every decade rather than having some that have the ability to last from cradle to grave. Songs that are designed to be performed for worshipers rather than produced collectively by them can serve a purpose. But in a society that’s already saturated with consumerism, it’s good to help believers see that they are part of a royal priesthood chosen and equipped to proclaim God’s praises rather than simply consume the praises that are produced by a select group with the talent to do so. In other words, we’re producing the specific type of worship resource we’re producing for a reason. It’s because we are convinced that these priorities best serve Christ’s church as it carries out its work.
That also means that it’s worth looking for, and finding, and including songs that fit those priorities and at the same time are accessible and enjoyable to sing and whose sound is fresh and relevant to today’s worshipers. Some of these modern songs might not last for generations or centuries. But by including songs that will catch on very quickly, we hopefully allow worshipers to discover the one on the very next page that has the ability to last for generations. By including songs that are easier to sing, we hopefully make it easier for worshipers to put in the worthwhile effort to learn the ones that are more difficult. By including songs whose sound is already relatively at home in the ear of newer worshipers, we hopefully make it easier for them to see that they can make a joyful noise to the Lord just as well as they can make a joyful noise to their pickup truck (sorry, country music fans) and that they can cry out in anguish to the Lord just as well as they can cry out in anguish over a recent breakup (sorry, Emo fans).
Finally, including modern music in a hymnal is very much in keeping with another priority inherent in producing a generational, denominational resource like a hymnal. It’s a reflection of one of the most beautiful and miraculous characteristics of Christ’s Church: our unity. Rather than the Church being one more group whose existence is determined by the shared interests of all the members, Christ’s Church brings together people from every tribe and every tongue, every nation and every generation, every political bent and every musical preference. Rather than being one more organization where everyone insists that every individual preference is met, the Church is an organization where everyone insists on setting aside those preferences for the good of the whole body. We hope our church body’s next hymnal will be a valuable tool for realizing that priority as well.