Sean's Question 1: Origins of Hymn of the Month

Sean asked a number of questions in the Comment section of the last post. I thought they each were worth answering in a separate post.

By the way, Sean, since you're one of about three people who reads and comments on this blog, I'm curious: Are you a church musician? Do you have a web site you'd like me to feature one of these days?

OK, here we go:

“How did you first start the hymn of the month idea?”

The summer after graduating from college, I had a few weeks in an apartment with nothing to do before the next gig. I decided to memorize hymns. Every day I would walk to the college library with a list of favorite hymns and then I would research their first appearances to get as close to the original lyrics as possible. Every afternoon I would order the hymns by date of writing and happily memorize them, stanza by stanza, in strict chronological sequence. Why deny my congregations this pleasure just because they have only a few minutes per week instead of hours per day?

The next year, as a first-year graduate student in Massachusetts, the church I served as organist requested an extended prelude once per month to prepare the congregation for communion. I thought the congregation might as well understand what they were hearing, so began little synopses in the bulletin each month, describing the prelude music, especially how the tunes and organ colorings illustrated the text.

Later, as a choir director, with a ton of music to teach every week and very little time to allow the words we were singing to sink in, I found it helpful to have a “theme” hymn just for the choir, to help focus their attention during a season.

Finally, at this most recent church, I’ve had the joy of considering what hymns could best minister to the congregants if they were deeply in the congregants’ minds—and what hymns would best help the congregants minister to God. They’re not all my absolute favorites—my personal favorites being rather too complex and often in different languages—typical of any trained musician—but they’re well-loved and quite good enough to live in hearts through a life-time. Many of them already have survived many centuries, so they’re likely good for a few more years….

Most of the hymns chosen for this congregation come from Hymns and Tunes Recommended for Ecumenical Use (ask the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada for this list), and then I chose which version of each we’ll use and what month it would fit best, including which hymn it best follows. Twelve to twenty months, meaning twelve to twenty hymns, is probably enough to plan ahead.

Hal Hopson has written One Hundred Plus Ways to Improve Hymnsinging: A Practical Guide for All Who Nurture Congregational Singing—do you know this book? I’ve only skimmed it, but it’s chockful of good ideas. You could spend the rest of your life and ministry implementing his ideas.