Credo ↔ Oratio

The meetings are over for a few months, but the work is just getting off the ground. In any case, it’s fair to say that the project is “up and running!” If everything goes well, there will be a joint hymnal published by the RCA and the CRC in 2013!

I suppose some of you might be wondering “Why?” There is the (mis)perception “out there” that hymnals are a thing of the past and that “no one” uses them any more. Anecdotally, let me note that the congregation I serve is a fairly healthy congregation and we use a hymnal for the majority of our songs. (We also have a suppliment entitled “Sing! A new Creation” – which was the RCA/CRC’s first major attempt at song-book-collaboration.) A little less anecdotally, here is what the committee’s FAQ says:

Why another hymnal?

In worship one of the main ways we praise and honor God, give voice to our prayers, and communicate the wonders of God’s works is through song. Though the underlying gospel message doesn’t change from generation to generation, the concerns, prayers, and social context of each generation does. Since the publication of Rejoice in the Lord, and The Psalter Hymnal we have seen sociological change with a move toward postmodernism and witnessed the exponential growth of technology – our world is very different today than it was twenty years ago. The words we use for worship need to express these new realities that form the backgdrop of our worship – a new hymnal for a new generation.

The desire for a new hymnal for a new generation fits with the reality that a hymnal has a lifespan of about 20 years. The Psalter Hymnal and Rejoice in the Lord have both surpassed the 20-year mark. A new or revised hymnal about every 20 years has also been the practice of the CRC, with hymnals being released in 1914, 1934, 1959, 1976, and 1987.

Are there enough churches that use hymnals to make this project worthwhile?

Yes, there are. Before we began this process we did a survey of churches in the CRC and RCA and found that there are still a significant number of churches that use hymnals and will continue to do so. Also, many churches that rely primarily on modern presentation technologies anticipate keeping a hymnbook in the pew as a supplemental worship resource.

The “why” is pretty easy. The “how,” on the other hand, is a very difficult question to answer.

• There are differences in the way our denominations handle hymnals;
• there are differences in the way we handle music within each denomination, and
• there are differences in our approach to worship music between each denomination;
• there is a lot of “baggage” in both denominations about the most recent publications (RCA: Rejoice in the Lord, CRC: The Psalter Hymnal – that is, the grey “new” one);
• there are a variety of genres and cultures that must be reflected in a hymnal such as this that are not well reflected in any other hymnal (denominational or commercial);
• hymnals serve both a reflective purpose (they express who we are) and a pedagogical purpose (they lead us into greater faithfulness);
• the list could go on…

We have begun to answer many of these questions (as a thirteen-member editorial team) and will be interacting directly with a larger advisory committee (made up of about eighty people from both denominations). In short, this is not a “back room” process attempting to hijack the worship lives of the RCA and CRC, it is an open and collaborative project engaging people from…

• both denominations,
• multiple ethnicities/racial backgrounds/cultures/languages,
• a variety of education-levels,
• diverse geographic make-up, and
• different styles.

I can’t wait to share more as we get going… hopefully this gets you excited.

Pray for us…

Grace and Peace,

`tim