Singing Welcome II

In May, 2017, The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada released Singing Welcome: Hymns and Songs of Hospitality to Refugees and Immigrants, a free, downloadable compilation of over 40 congregational songs for worship.  The collection has been downloaded more than one thousand times and has found usage in a wide variety of churches. In the 18 months since …

Singing Welcome

The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada is pleased to announce the release of Singing Welcome: Hymns and Songs of Hospitality to Refugees and Immigrants, a collection of 46 hymns and songs available for free download from The Hymn Society’s website www.thehymnsociety.org/singingwelcome. For nearly 100 years, the work of The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada …

Hymns for Hope and Healing

The outcome of a fruitful collaboration of theologians, writers and musicians working at the retreat and therapeutic centre of Holy Rood House in Yorkshire, this new collection articulates the needs of a contemporary ministry of healing through the agency of hymns, the church’s most resonant and expressive form of worship. Hymns of Hope and Healing is the product of many …

Short Guide No 13: Using Hymns in All-Age Worship

Some services are designated as ‘all-age’. What does this imply? Ideally, all worship should be suitable for everyone in a worshipping community. ‘Our Father’ should mean what it says, without alienating people because of their age or cultural background. So, the term ‘all-age’ usually means a service for both adults and children, with a special emphasis on families. The potential …

Short Guide No 5: How Can We Encourage the Use of Hymns in Worship?

Some ideas to be shared with worship leaders Have a suitable range of hymns available to illustrate the session. A group of well prepared musicians is a great asset! You must involve the audience throughout and be sensitive to people’s interests and concerns. Encourage participation and aim to stimulate discussion which leads to positive outcomes. These notes represent one way …

Short Guide No 2: What Types of Hymns and Songs are Available?

Once, it was “hymns”. In recent years, many churches have adopted “worship songs” – sometimes alongside hymns, sometimes instead. Inevitably, however, the picture is far more complex than this. There are many different genres available for congregational use; here are a few of the main types and some of their strengths. Traditional Hymns Traditional hymns began to be written in …

Treasure No 76: Producing 5,842 hymns

Treasure No 76: Producing 5,842 hymns by Bert Tosh An Article from Bulletin 262, January 2010 (A transcript of the paper given to the Hymn Society Conference of 2009) hen your President asked me for a title for this talk and I came up with ‘Producing 5,842 hymns’, I wondered if you thought there was another Charles Wesley in your …