Hymns are the song of the people—the persons in the pew, the congregation that assembles. While choirs always join in the hymn singing, and often perform a leadership role—as well as providing musical enrichments to the hymn singing, hymns are ultimately the song of everyone gathered.—the entire community.
Yet, many congregations struggle to add new hymns to their repertoire, perhaps in response to a concern that the folks can only learn so much new music. But, the classic definition of a hymn is not a melody, but rather a text; words that are sung to a tune. There may be a limit to the number of new tunes any congregation can learn, but access to new words is relatively unlimited, especially when new words are put to well-known, well-loved melodies.
While we will introduce a few new melodies at this festival, taking the necessary steps to assure everyone’s participation, most of the provocative and inspiring new texts we will sing will be sung to melodies that are familiar.