17 September 2015 A.D. “15 Reasons Why We Should Still Be Using Hymnals”
17 September 2015 A.D. “15
Reasons Why We Should Still Be Using Hymnals”
Aigner,
Jonathan. “15 Reasons Why We Should Still Be Using Hymnals.” Patheos. 22 Jul 2014. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ponderanew/2014/07/22/reasons-why-we-should-still-be-using-hymnals/.
Accessed 2015.
Unfortunately,
many churches have done this with their hymnals, but I think they are important
symbols for worshiping congregations. Here are some of the reasons why.
1. Hymnals
actually teach music. We’re making less music than ever before. Oh, to be sure, there’s
lots of music going on around us, but very few people are actually making it.
We’re just consuming it, or at the very most, singing along with music someone
else made first. But even an untrained musician can look at the words and music
in the hymnal and learn to follow melodic direction and rhythmic value.
2. Hymnals
set a performance standard. Contemporary worship music
is based on recording instead of notation. This is endlessly confusing, and it
opens each song up to individual interpretation. Without notation, it is
exceedingly hard to sing well as a congregation. Hymnals fix that. Everybody
has the same notation, so we all know how the song is supposed to go.
3. Hymnals
integrate the music and text. Words on a screen give no
musical information. Hymnals fix that. Singers aren’t dependent upon learning
the song by rote.
4. Hymnals
allow you to sing anywhere. When you depend on projection to
display hymn texts, you’re bound to do your music making in a space outfitted
with sufficient media.
5. Hymnals
allow people to take possession of the music. I know congregants
that love to find out the next Sunday’s hymns during the previous week, so they
can open up their hymnal, refresh the words, and work on their part so they’re
prepared to lend their voices. Preparation like that is one of the ways music
making becomes a worshipful activity. Hymnals make it possible for people to
have easy access to the best songs.
6. Hymnals
don’t screw things up. Unless some kid has ripped the page out
of your hymnal, you know the hymn you’re looking for is going to be there.
Technology lets us down all the time, and if it happens in the middle of a song
or hymn, you’re sunk.
7. Hymnals
are as helpful as the singer needs them to be. It’s hard to ignore
a screen, no matter how well I know the song being sung. Its mere presence
sends most people into a trance. There are times I must pay close attention to
the hymnal. I recently sang the hymn “Ye watchers and ye holy ones” in a
service. I know of the hymn, and I know LASST UNS ERFREUEN, but I didn’t grow
up singing it. I had to follow the entire time. I needed the hymnal. Last
Saturday, I sang in the choir for a funeral. It was a beautiful service; a
reflection on a life well-lived in service of the kingdom. When it came time
for the final hymn, “Blessed Assurance,” I rose, opened the hymnal, and held it
out, but didn’t look at it once. I long ago internalized every note and word of
this hymn. I was free to look out into the congregation, making eye contact,
sharing the ethos of the experience with others.
8. Hymnals
are a theological textbook. There is no perfect hymnal, but
well-crafted hymnals are reliable sources of theological information.
9. Hymnals
involve tactile action. Hymnals make the people work. Picking
up the hymnal, finding the right page, and holding it up to sing grounds you in
time and space. Feeling the weight in your hand engages you in the activity
more than staring at a screen ever could.
10.
Hymnals are not particularly
distracting. Screens are actually very difficult to follow. Whenever I’m
forced to read a projected text, I am so easily lost in the colors,
backgrounds, and movements. I find myself anticipating when the next slide will
be advanced. When I’m using a hymnal, none of that comes into play. I have the
words and music, and I don’t even have to worry about turning the page.
11.
Hymnals preserve the aesthetics of the
Sanctuary. There is rarely a good place to hang a screen. Even worse, when
installed into older spaces, the result can be a visual nightmare. Don’t be
mistaken. It may be a secondary issue, but it’s also a theological one. Here is
a particularly painful before and after example from Second Baptist Church in
Houston, Texas. The beautiful organ pipe arrangement and the stained glass
baptistry are now masked by three massive projection screens. The en
chamade were completely removed.
12.
Hymnals confront us with “new”
songs. We tend to go back to our favorite songs too often. It’s easy to
fall into a rut. I recently looked back at a year’s worth of bulletins, and was
a little embarrassed at how much we had sung several hymns. Not that there was
anything wrong with the hymns, but the congregation needs to be stretched to
learn unfamiliar songs. When I was a kid, I enjoyed learning to play my
favorite hymns on the piano from my mom’s 1975 Baptist Hymnal. Along the way, I
would run into hymns that weren’t my favorites. After a while, while flipping
through the book, I would run into these hymns again and again. Finally, I would
stop and takea look. Often, these “new” hymns turned out to be great sources of
encouragement to me, even though they were once unfamiliar and foreign.
13.
Hymnals give validity to new
hymns. New hymns are often defined by the company they keep. When new
hymnals are published, if they’re done well, they will introduce us to newer
songs to be added to the ranks of hymnody. The fact that these songs are now
sandwiched in between hymns like “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty” and
“Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” adds to their validity.
14.
Hymnals make songs less disposable.
Okay, obviously you can throw a hymnal away if you want, but text on a screen
is there one second and gone the next. There’s no visible permanence. Hymnals
are symbols of consistency. They give life and breath to the great songs. They
demonstrate that what we sing is worth keeping around.
15.
Hymnals give congregational singing
back to the people. Congregations watching screens are at
the mercy of whoever is sitting behind the computer. Holding hymnals symbolizes
the fact that the voice of the congregation is the primary instrument in
corporate worship.
Comments
Post a Comment