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2010-09-01 issue:

Do we need a new hymnal?

From the editor

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

We have posted this question on our website as a poll question. We ask the question (vote at www.themennonite.org) because Mennonite Publishing Network (MPN) will need to make a decision in the next year. A better question might have been, Would your congregation pay $21.95 for each new hymnal?

"We are still in the discernment stage," says Ron Rempel, executive director for MPN, when asked about the status of this project.

The stakes are high, and they are more than financial. Our hymnal is our prayer book. It is the way we, together, speak most passionately to God. The hymns we hold in common forge a bond anywhere we gather.

A startling demonstration of this bond happened at a Mennonite youth convention in 1997. Convention leaders rented Sea World in Orlando, Fla., for a private Shamu showing. As some 6,000 youth and sponsors waited for the show to begin, someone started, "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow" (606 in the Mennonite Hymnal). The Sea World staff stared in disbelief, surrounded by thousands of mostly teenagers singing in four parts, a cappella and without song books. This was not showing off. It was the way we said who we were.

But Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA leaders—through MPN—have some difficult questions to answer now if they expect to have a new hymnal available by 2016. In email exchanges with five of these leaders, these questions emerged as critical to the discernment process:

1. Is it possible to anticipate the worship and music needs of congregations six or seven years from now?

2. Can a new hymnal serve the growing diversity of music styles in our churches? For example, how would a new hymnal serve the increased use of praise and worship songs?    

3. Will a new hymnal be viable if it is published only in print form?

4. Will a new hymnal serve the worship needs of underrepresented racial/ethnic churches?

5. Will congregations have enough money to buy new hymnals in quantity for their members?

6. Could production be conditional on congregations preordering copies in order to get the funds needed to make it?

The advent of electronic media increases both the challenges and opportunities for a project such as this.

“This project will ... be very unlike any previous hymn collection that has appeared between the hard covers of a book that sits in a pew,” said Dave Bergen, Mennonite Church Canada's executive secretary for Christian formation.

Bergen said the end result may include such a book, but it will need to be much more flexible technically: The new version will need to respond to congregations’ practice of projecting music onto a screen and the desire to transpose and arrange music using computer-based technology. Bergen also said it will need to incorporate visual media to support worship.

The decision will have ramifications for generations to come since singing is central to our worship life as Mennonites.

"We need to be asking what we can afford and also what happens to our denomination and our singing tradition if we don't do this right," says Amy Gingerich, MPN's editorial director. "It's a balancing act."

In the meantime, each congregation can ask: Do we need a new hymnal? If we do, who will pay for it? Those charged with making this important decision are interested in what you think.

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