Thursday 7 January 2010

Music and Worship: Choosing the Hymns

The content of church services is largely laid down by Common Worship (2000) or the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. But one area always left to local choice is music, not least because the abilities and tastes of congregations and choirs vary so greatly. The choice of hymns and songs always requires careful thought.

A principal aim in Chandler’s Ford is to link the hymns with the liturgical season (Epiphany, Lent, etc.) where possible. The bible readings can suggest other choices. For example, on Sunday 13 February 2005 the Epistle (Romans 5: 12–19) had several references to grace, a theme touched on in the Gradual hymn sung at St Boniface, Mission Praise 774 (‘With joy we meditate the grace...’).

It is important to have suitable kinds of hymn at particular points in the service. Thus we often sing one of the most uplifting items at the end, and in the Eucharist have a longish hymn to cover the Offertory. A Gradual hymn may refer to the Epistle that it follows (as we saw above) or to the Gospel that it precedes.

In recent years, we have to some extent matched particular types of hymns or songs with different types of service. This is probably preferable to trying to please everyone all the time. Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer services usually rely strongly on recent songs and have few or no traditional hymns. At Evensong, on the other hand, things have changed fairly little since Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised was adopted in the early 1970s.

However, there is a mixture of styles at the 10.00am Holy Eucharist at St Boniface, to reflect the ‘mixed’ congregation (and to avoid too much narrowness either for younger or older worshippers at the principal Sunday service). Mission Praise [as used in Chandler’s Ford for about 10 years until 2008] is useful for this as it contains a good deal of ‘old’ material from many traditions plus plenty of newer favourites.

Who chooses the hymns? Currently [2007] at St Boniface the vicar drafts three-monthly lists and shows them to me to agree, change or adjust – although for Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer the choice usually rests with the people devising these services. Each three-monthly list, which can undergo last-minute fine tuning, rarely includes any hymn more than once. So, given 10 hymns or songs per Sunday, regular worshippers at the Holy Eucharist and Evensong will be singing over 100 different items in a three-month period.

As well as variety, we hope for some freshness, while avoiding a disconcerting amount of novelty. Inevitably there are disappointments and less than successful choices. More suggestions from the congregation and choir would be welcome, particularly if backed up by some interesting explanation. Plenty of notice is appreciated, and for practical reasons most items for the Holy Eucharist and for Evensong need to be available in the books regularly used for these services.

What might you choose, for what occasion, and why?

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