Hymns : Entering the Minefield
"I didn't like the hymns today." "Why did we sing 'x' to the wrong tune?" "The hymns were far too fast this morning." "The hymns were far too slow this morning." Anyone who leads worship regularly will be all too familiar with these - and similar - comments. The selection and performance of hymns can be a major bone of contention in even the most harmonious congregation (if you pardon the pun). I suspect that many worshippers have little idea of how much time, blood, sweat and tears actually goes into the choosing of hymns, if it's done properly and conscientiously. Selecting hymns for worship isn't simply a matter of closing one's eyes and sticking a pin in the index of a hymn book, nor of endlessly regurgitating one's own - or indeed one's congregation's - favourites. It is rather a matter of carefully matching the hymns to the liturgical season, the themes of the set readings for the day (especially the...