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What is a hymnal? It’s much more than a songbook!
Fall/Winter 2024
What really is a hymnal? Is it just a songbook that we handle frequently but perhaps with little understanding of its rich contents? Why should we still produce hymnals? In this electronic media age these are appropriate and relevant questions to raise. In a day when some segments of the church may consider the hymnal obsolete or passé, we need to take a fresh and comprehensive look to recover a new appreciation of and affection for this remarkable resource. The hymnal is the repository of a rich treasury of Christian experience, theology, and prayers. What follows here are some of the unique dimensions of this remarkable treasure.
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Treasures, both old and new: Transitions in worship music
Spring/Summer 2019
I was recently asked to create a survey of the music used in Covenant camps in the Pacific Northwest Conference based on my years as music director at First Covenant Church, Seattle (1961-69). In leading hymn festivals with Seattle-area Covenant churches and being a musician at Covenant Beach Bible Camp, I had a fairly good overview of the music of that era. The present essay is based on that survey and expanded on the assumption that these perspectives may largely apply to the Covenant denomination as a whole.
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Holy humor and church chuckles
Spring/Summer 2017
It was at a retirement center’s weekly chapel service, in which one of the residents was selected to read the appointed scripture lesson of the day prior to the sermon. The passage selected for that day was the Beatitudes. The senior lady was doing well with the reading until she uttered, “Blessed are the pacemakers…”
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Bryan Jeffery Leech
Fall/Winter 2015
Bryan Jeffery Leech was a remarkably gifted and unique man. The amalgamation of a prolific hymn writer, facile lyricist, composer, gifted preacher, witty humorist, beloved pastor and caring friend—all rolled into one rather diminutive fellow with a delightful British accent—that was Bryan! He arrived from his native England when he was 25, and years later in celebrating his 50th birthday, he declared, “Now I’m half and hahf!”
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Strange songs and Holy humor
Spring/Summer 2015
Following my earlier article in Pietisten that included a selection of hymns and songs ranging from the quaint to the absurd, I offer you more of the same in this sequel.
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Hymns to Avoid
Spring/Summer 2012
