Wednesday, October 24, 2007
As I Prepare This Week's Bulletin...
I will simply note that hymn books are sometimes a big pain in the derriere. Last week was Peace and Justice Sunday. Do you think there are any songs in our hymnal that talk about justice, or peace that goes beyond being like a river in my little individual soul? No. This week I'm preaching about something along the lines of being genuine in our thanksgiving to God, rather than just using praise as yet another way to favorably compare ourselves with others and try to claim ownership of God. I wish for hymns about these things, but I'm not sure they exist, and they certainly do not exist in our hymnal. Instead I have things like "Blessed assurance, Jesus is MINE," and "MY Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art MINE." Don't get me wrong, I actually like both of those hymns, but they are so very unrelated to most of the things I preach about, and most of the things I see as important in the Gospel. I guess I should write some hymns, but that is a time-consuming endeavor, and hymns aren't really my strength in song-writing. In the meantime, I wish for a new hymnal, and for more hymn-writers to get a sense that there is more to the Gospel that this Jesus-in-my-heart business.
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9 comments:
Not to toot my denominational horn, but the Chalice Hymnal is an amazing resource. There are whole sections on themes of peace, justice, care of the earth, and so on. (Plus they still keep the moldy oldies, which are good in their own right.)
Here's an example:
"When Will People Cease Their Fighting" by Constance Cherry (sung to RUSTINGTON) vs. 2: "Floods and earthquakes, drought and famine plague the world with awesome ill, but far greater is war's horror caused by human, stubborn will. Blest are those who, working praying, purpose in their hearts to be instruments of peace, committed to the nations' harmony." It's quite singable, too.
Is your congregation open to inserts of "other than hymnbook" songs? There are so many good things available. . .talk to me more if you want. . .
Hi, Stacy!
We use the UCC's New Century Hymnal. There are also some nice selections in there.
the peace hymns that immediately come to my mind have to do with the peace in jerusalem, which, let's face it, has been incredibly ironic for a very long time and seems to be more and more like a pipe dream.
Chalice Hymnal isn't bad. There are also several very good Iona resources, Voices United (the UCCanada hymnal), Common Ground (a UK Hymnal edited by John Bell), and Sing! A New Creation. This is just the beginning of the pile of resources I explore when choosing hymns. The investment of about $100.00 a year in OneLicense.net allows you to greatly expand your congregation's horizons. Also, look at hymns by Sylvia Dunstan, Fred Kaan, Brian Wren, John Core, John Thornburg, et al. Who knows? You might even know a professional hymn writer. I'm sure you know somebody who has the software to typeset texts and tunes for you and make them into handy-dandy .tiff files that can be imported into worship bulletins.
One of my teachers used to say that you need a shelf-full of hymnals to prepare worship. Kathleen and I have a few shelves full, and we'd love to have you come to dinner some time and browse around. In the meantime, you can check out resources from the Hymn Society's book service (www.hymnsociety.org).
There are talented, intersting, fun-to-drink-with people out there working to write these things your congregation can use. Don't be limited by your hymnal.
Oh hooray - I was about to start talking about Common Ground and the Fred Kaan material but someone is ahead of me.
John Bell's justice and peace hymns are fabulous
"Inspired by love and anger..."
"Heaven shall not wait for the poor to lose their patience.."
If you haven't got hold of a copy by next spring, I'll bring one to the revgal event (assuming that I'm bound to fly into NYC en route) as you surely ought to have a copy.
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone! I'm familiar with most of the material you've mentioned, but my attempts to use non-hymnal material have not gone over terribly well in the past. It also requires me to be organized and thinking of the service much further in advance, which is a knack I just have not gotten yet :)
Stacey's experience has been my experience too. There are wonderful new hymns out there but the gap between the books and the congregation is sometimes pretty huge.
Just teaching people one new hymn sometimes takes a couple months of patience.
Ah, but then we are left complaining about the darkness while surrounded by light switches.
It does take planning, and work, and conspiring with your musicians. It does take patiently teaching your congregation. The alternative, however, is leaving them back in a pre-WW2 theology (which some of our colleagues are all to happy to do) where they cannot develop the mental and spiritual tools to relate the Gospel to the world where we all live. Do you preach only Eisenhower-era (or earlier) sermons? Do you ignore the war in Iraq and global warming and the Internet, speaking only of "Leave It to Beaver" nuclear families, farms and cattle to people in urban situations, and the dangers of Papists? Weren't generations of faithful leaders martyred for the principle of worship in the vernacular? Feeding our congregations a diet of only Fanny Crosby and her contemporaries in order to avoid the hard work of teaching new things is to deny worship in the vernacular. Better for us all to decide that Zwingli was right, and to stop singing in worship altogether.
No, we need to take up the hard work, and we need to ask for help from those who can help. We can also take advantage of the fact that Zwingli was a little bit right: new words go down more easily with old tunes, and lots of intrepid hymnwriters have written accordingly, and, even if you find a great text to an unfamiliar tune you can, more often than not, rematch it to a familiar one (that's what the metrical index is for).
Of course, all of this stuff must be really simple and obvious (sarcasm alert, in case you didn't get it), which is why RCA ministers, in particular, receive so little training in all of this.
Easier for us to say it's hard, and to leave our parishes even more hobbled than they already are when it comes to any hope of renewal.
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