The Vanishing Hymnal

There are traditions, then there are essentials, and a wise church knows the difference.

Mine did. When I began fellowshipping as a teenager, our pastor allowed us to quite literally come as we were: barefoot, long haired, and clad in Levis, although tradition at that time dictated coats and ties for church. Guitars, bass and even drums were utilized for worship, in defiance of the traditional piano/organ combination one normally saw in those days.

But if we approached traditions of dress or music casually, our approach to the essentials – like preaching – was rigid. The Bible study or sermon could last an hour or longer, and doom to anyone who talked, moved about, or in any way distracted from the teaching of the word. Respect for the essentials was intact, as was liberty regarding traditions. So I appreciate innovations in worship, and celebrate new approaches that may or may not observe tradition.

That said, I also lament – either rightfully as a concerned believer or wrongfully as an old fogy – the predominance of choruses in worship, and the corresponding neglect of hymns.

I’m pretty sure this is a widespread trend, based on what I hear and also on what I’ve seen  in a high number of churches I’ve been to over the past thirty years. Worship has increasingly centered on modern choruses and much, much less on the hymnal.

Now I really love choruses, and my early spiritual years were spent singing them regularly. (Though I gotta say many of them were scripture put to music, and we learned an awful lot of the Bible that way!) But we also learned, and loved, the inspired palette of hymns the Church has been graced with, songs that are rich in doctrine, beautifully structured, noticeably poetic. Without them, I think we miss so much.

We miss the discipline of thinking through the lyrics we’re singing, words strung together in stanzas requiring concentrated thought along with reverence, loving God with our minds as we follow the theme and phrasing of the hymn.

We miss the theology, evident and rich in so many hymns – “And Can It Be”, “At Calvary”, “Just As I Am”, and “A Mighty Fortress” to name a miniscule few – and we miss the sustaining force that theology, phrased so eloquently, can provide in life. Plenty of saints over the centuries have drawn strength in dire times from classic hymns, a strength I’d hate for modern believers to miss out on.

We miss a link to past believers through a common knowledge of the musical poetry that’s built up so many who’ve gone before, and now seems all but extinct, though I’m probably wrong about that. But honestly, I remember a time virtually all believers I knew shared a working knowledge of the great hymns, a knowledge that helped bind us together with mutually understood phrases and thoughts.

I won’t discount the choruses, which have their own richness, accessibility, and definite beauty. But I wish that, while still using them, we’d re-open the dusty hymnal and rediscover – or perhaps for the first time discover – the rock solid legacy of praise and reflection which can breathe new life into us, inside and outside the sanctuary.

Just sayin.’