The Value of Hymns

Transcript

okay as I said this uh class will be about hymns

as a people been a boss and probably no over the past while I've been going around the Ecclesia and uh asking people what their favorite hymn is and why

um also obviously this is obviously very um subjective topic and a very communal one so feel free to input uh give input whenever

so for the survey which is not done uh despite how much further Steve hyped it up on Sunday but the currently the Front Runners

um the slide up how to move slides here there we are currently in first the survey is abide with me type a second are seek ye first and How Great Thou Art

tied for fourth our Rochelle Bloom and great faithfulness and then in sixth place is to God be the glory great things he has done then they're like 30 other M's that uh people have brought up as their favorite so I started the survey

um a couple reasons first because I just thought it would be good to have a log of what everyone's favorite game was I guess it ever became necessary but uh more significantly just to find out what people valued in hymns

and fuel gave a lot of uh very different reasons for why hymns were their favorites uh some people really emphasize the lyrics and particular I kept hearing the phrase it says it all and

as to why lyric spoke so much some people uh for different hymns I know why that one particular phrase kept coming up but um means a lot to people um

some people just like the music or like the emotions or atmosphere the hymn uh provided or

um sometimes the hymn was connected to a specific memory or reminded them of a specific person uh pretty often you know you'll remind people of a loved one who passed away it was their favorite him so now it's become that person's favorite him or reminded them of uh Bible school or some other event that they uh people cared about and sometimes people didn't actually know why him was their favorite and they were just sure it was

so I guess the first question would be what makes a good hymn to you because I have a few criteria I came up with it with but you know everyone's going to have their own opinions on uh what makes him good for them

after this so the criteria can I hear this

criteria I came up with B uh first that the music is easy enough for people to quickly pick up and complex or unique enough to keep people interested

um generally people should be able to follow the hymn aftering a verse or two but if the hymn doesn't have anything unique or interesting going on musically they can pretty quickly start to lose interest uh

the Ecclesia is using a Pianist or organist obviously the hymn can't be too hard for them to play

and hymns can be a bit more complex when you have a larger group like at a bible school or uh weekend uh second criteria would be that the hymns aren't too short or too long with some exceptions I would say most hymns should and generally are somewhere between a minute 30 and three minutes

yeah if you use a particularly long hymn or particularly short hymn we should be careful to watch the length of the hymn

um maybe balance it out with some him you know if we use one particular long hand maybe use some other shorter hymns

um people probably won't notice if you pick one very long hymn but if you're picking multiple really long hymns uh people definitely start to notice and get distracting they're good here is just that the music is good you know even the people who say they like the lyrics of him generally picked a hymn that still sounded decent

um besides just sounding good I think it's important that the music evoke something in you you know sometimes you're playing a hymn and I'm just kind of left wondering what exactly the music is supposed to be making you feel uh

so

hopefully the music brings out emotions in you or certain feelings and that ties in with uh criteria four that the lyrics are good uh even the people who said they picked to him for the music generally picked to him with solid lyrics uh you know it's important for the lyrics to have a purpose and what are they trying to achieve what message are they sending to God and what reactions are they evoking us

uh we'll talk about this a bit later but hymns usually have a specific purpose in service so obviously the lyrics of the hymn should match what it's being used for some things can have really specific lyrics that don't fit for the majority of services so we may not hear them often uh the most I've been looking through the hymn book try and you know see what different hymns they have and the most specific him I've seen so far is in 146 which is just about first Samuel 3 or Samuel hears God's voice for the first time uh so I guess if you ever talk about that story and uh

a service I guess keep him 146 in mind but otherwise I don't think there's much of a chance that's going to come up uh very often

um the lyrics of the first 75 hymns in the green book are just adapted from the Psalms

um conceptually I think it's really interesting to be saying the same words that people were singing in ancient Israel in Judah but honestly I think a lot of them can end up feeling that forced and unnatural you know there's some great hymns in the first 75 but compared to the other sections of the hymn book notice we don't actually use a lot of the hymns for the verse 75. you know with some obvious exceptions but um many of them just don't get picked often

and so the fifth criteria that I would say makes a good hymn is that the music and lyrics synchronize well

um they should strengthen one another and we when we stand up for a hymn we're not just reading poetry and at least for the three primary hymns we're not just listening to the instrumental so both the music and the lyrics should be bringing something to the table to create a greater whole some hints may sound good but the lyrics just don't or the music just doesn't fit the lyrics at all uh in particular there's some there are a lot of hymns that have a pretty somber tune but quite uplifting lyrics it kind of creates dissonance between the two make the message of him kind of confusing

is particularly well will be Joy to the World obviously very joyful sounding song and so they both promote the same message another B How Great Thou Art uh musically evokes the same Wonder God's creation that the lyrics discuss

and on the other end of things would be um was it for me thy flesh was wounded sore m221 on the more you know somber side of things uh in fact I guess some people don't particularly care for the Sim specifically because it is so distraught uh but fairlease that shows that it's achieving the tone it's going for uh my favorite hymn would be him 330. you guys can play it but most people probably recognize the Sim

um which is I heard the voice of Jesus say because the music tells the same story as the lyrics it starts out very somber and exhausted uh for gradually becoming more hopeful peaceful as the narrator finds comfort in Jesus

I guess I would ask you um do this criteria make sense uh two guys or would you say there are anything I've missed because obviously like to hear more

I usually look at him uh Josh that has a good beat that I could dance to

but the rest of your criteria like as well

so Josh when you talk about this cry these Five Points of criteria are you placing any one above the other are you just saying these are sort of on equal ground as far as what's important

um I would say the last three are the most important individually you know um Good lyrics um good music and the fact that the two work together well

um the first two can be played with a bit more you can have some more complex hymns or some more simple hymns you can have some longer him some very short hymns they're just two things you definitely need to keep in mind uh when you're picking hymns and you have to be careful about uh specifically those two are important as hymns not just as songs right so

um those are more like

um how the equation works with the hymns which is just is it a good piece of music

no

thanks

hi Josh it's Kimberly

um I really am enjoying your class on my ride home from work thank you it's it's it's very I really like it and

my favorite hymn and I think this is one thing that you didn't bring up a reason that I chose it is because of the contract and it's him I don't know the number off the top of my head but Lord Jesus I have promised to serve thee to the end my master and my friend I feel like with that song there's such a contract like I have promised to serve you and then back brings us right back to Genesis and the promise that God has made to us so my favorite hymn is because of that contract and the promise that is there from the very beginning of time

yeah yeah that's actually a good point because you know uh sometimes are very good if they bring something out from the Bible right sometimes can just be you know General feelings or whatever summons really do

um pull some good messages from the Bible and sort of connect us to those feelings that's sort of what it meant with uh talking about the um Psalms what I liked about those is that you know you are singing the same hymns that they're singing thousands of years ago you can get the same feelings from them so yeah that's a good point

okay

anything else and I'll move on to uh let's see

how do we use hems

yeah uh hymns often have particular things they're meant for and are marked in the green book as such

um some cliches use more hymns than we do uh for service in Boston but here we use at least five hymns every service usually somewhere between seven to ten of course we only sing three of them we start with the preludes we generally use at least two or three but it can be far more

some hymns especially hymns that are a bit too difficult or Too Short uh get used a lot more as piano preludes and post loots they actually get sung

hey Josh can you explain exactly what you mean by Prelude

uh I mean the yeah when people are for example getting ready to uh go sit down or just talking around the either pianist or the person controlling uh the music system plays usually their piano um pieces in the background

thanks

the after that

shouldn't really play this hymn

of course the Lord is in his holy Temple is used as sort of The Unofficial it's time to sit down we're starting theme uh in fact the lyrics seem to show that that's exactly what the hymn was meant for

um I guess one question I have is has anyone been part of an inclusia or been to inclusion that doesn't use this as sort of their opening him

hey Josh yeah I I had never heard of that costume before I moved to New England it was totally unfamiliar to me and it seems like all the ecclesias here use it but interesting not just here either right but a lot of places but yeah it was new to me and so it was new to me as well we don't use it in Australia or New Zealand

question if it's uh does that did Abington use it like before they joined uh Central we we did not no

but I do like it just gonna do it today that was actually part of the criteria for them to come into Fellowship well we went round and round on that Jim

how about some of the other uh folks online is that a is that a Prelude that is used in Europe leisure

um I've been to Moorestown in New Jersey and they don't use it and I miss it I almost want to say you know you need to do this

interesting it's up in Ontario is that used up there I would say yeah the Bible school yeah

no we don't use it we're in Ontario but I'm aware of interesting yeah

yeah we use it sometimes we try to vary the prelude

that would be my preference to vary it

yeah

good yeah the one from I would say with varying it is at least in Boston uh when people don't play sort of that final postlude of Lords and this Holy Temple and kind of kind of throw people off people are expecting that before um you know the service starts so people can be really surprised if you don't play that one

everybody

your District it does sort of set up people that go oh I better I better shut up specifically Butch of course yeah

yeah

and I guess my next question would be uh for the people who do um use it as sort of an unofficial starting him uh why or when that started uh because that does seem to be sort of the point of the hymn but I don't know when or where that became sort of at least for New England the young officials were starting now him

he actually used to do it when I grew up in Springfield they played it

this as an open or the Prelude but it just got everybody's you know settled down and you know let all the Earth keep silence before him just kind of like preparing your mind for the service

my final question on this would be has anyone ever actually sung miss him

we have been stolen

yeah yeah interesting I don't remember that because it you know it has lyrics but it seems to be meant as sort of that opening Prelude

um

you know setting up for um the Iglesia

that's interesting yeah I don't think we're playing it as part of a memorial

yeah sort of like a hymn singer or something yeah I can't remember but we played it here yeah okay well then after uh we play him 168 in Boston uh in presiders and exhorters among us feel free to give input on the hymns you pick and why uh next we start with the opening him usually it's a praise him uh which in the hymn book is marked as him 76 to 133 but more nebulously just any him that focuses on praising God uh hopefully and optimally it gets people in the right frame of mind for a service to start

then after that you know obviously we have service and then the memorial hymn which is remembrance of Christ sacrifice uh due to the specific subject matter the number of hymns tend to be pretty limited so a lot of the same hymns get used

then there's the closing him which is usually just that you should wrap up what the service was about usually it's inspirational in some sense

and there's the post loot generally picked by The Pianist or whoever is controlling him using it uh the music rather than the exorder presider some people like more meditative post loots and other people like Post lose that energize people you know sort of marks them out the door foreign

Josh I can remember uh back when I first started in the Ecclesia and you know we had uh two pianists we had uh Ruth Wallace and sister Nadia Fulton one played the piano one played the organ and Ruth was commissioned by her husband that the postlude always had to be a uh bang bang bang you know much the people out the door uh kind of him he felt that always should be something that just picks people up and and gets them out of this heat kind of music and every once in a while Ruth would pick a Sombra him and you could be assured that before she walked into that building I would call her aside and say that's not a that's not a post fluid him

so it has changed over the years for sure

Josh what I um I would pick a closing him I would think about uh want to think about the kingdom I wouldn't want to think forward those would be the type of hymns that I would pick but vision for the future Christ's return

um yeah the glories of the Kingdom

um or another exhortational you know hey you've just been exhorted or we've been exhorted to do love and good deeds

yeah and I think uh there's a praise the Lord him uh let me serve you uh your brother let's serve you yes that's kind of along that line where we walk out of here with that being the last thing that we sang together just kind of like this is our purpose we're supposed to be servants right

so besides the hints we use in service uh some other uses for hymns would be Evening Hymns which are usually used at bible school or weekends baptismal hymns for baptisms obviously seasonal hymns which are only picked at certain times of the year personally I think the seasonal hymns can be a bit silly but that's just me you know like we plow the leads and Scatter or ho Reapers of life's Harvest

um there's a whole section in the hymn book called seasons and special occasions which also includes some hands for weddings some New Year's hymns one him him 427 seems to be the uh for the opening of new meeting Hall which is interesting and I guess that would be about the rarest him ever used

yeah what number is that Josh 4 27 427. it was a good motor

foreign

28 which

um let me find the exact note is it says this hymn is suitable for receiving into Fellowship which I guess yeah it's separated from baptism hymns so because for adding people to your congregation in particular

yeah so 427 you know talks about Grant Lord thy blessing on this place it may this license be a place that glorifies that name Evermore pleases thee never pleases thee

he was talking about this place in this meeting place so I I guess I don't know if anyone's ever even heard that one but could be good for whatever a new meeting place opens up

and then you have dismissal hymns or goodbye hymns which usually is just God be with you till we meet again in 435 I think it's definitely most popular of those certainly a great hymn we also tend to tie him to certain events some hymns are pretty much always played at bible school like uh seek ye first and teach me thy way uh hymns about Jesus birth tend to get played around Christmas or just considered him specifically for Christmas

obviously service is more focused on Christ's sacrifice and Resurrection in the coming Kingdom but Christ's birth is still a pretty important event I'm not sure we need to you know sequester hymns about his birth to only be played in December in fact Joy to the World um is lyrically not even about Christ's birth it's about the kingdom but because it's so culturally tied to Christmas that's pretty much the only time we ever sing it

to move on to the next section I guess the next would be what is the value of hymns now why do we sing hymns simple answers because God commanded it but that's not that you know that's not an arbitrary commandment the hymns have to have value uh that's why they say it and I guess I'll first opened the floor to what would you say is the value of hymns

praise God

it's good first yeah I remember uh once here in Harry tenants a hymns are the only time we really do everything together you made the point that even when you give a prayer it's just one brother and your mind can wander sometimes but when it comes to a hymn it's the one time when the whole congregation is uh praising God as one so it's one of the powerful things I think that hymns do in a service or or at any time

yeah so I agree no come up yeah you know the first point I would say for what is the value of hymns is you know people and obviously the God he created us just enjoy music you know it's one of the most universally popular and appreciated art mediums in the world it's relatively rare for someone to not like music at all at least compared to other mediums like you know poetry or painting or movies

um pretty much every society in the world no matter how disconnected they may be made and still makes their own music and as you said hymns are communal they're probably the most communal part of service you know to help people feel part of the service and just instead of just being in the audience and uh

you know when you're just sitting there for a while your mind can certainly uh started to wander whereas him sort of pull you back in and one thing that's very nice about hymns is people rely on each other for him or else him falls apart in Boston we've largely switched to using a choir recording for him I saw it for a backing instrument uh on one hand it theodically removes some of that necessary communal aspect that hymns can provide it's a bit of a downside but on the other hand uh honestly we're not great at Boston musically once the choir improves

uh especially on new or difficult hymns we could seriously be a mess before the choir as our performance on Sunday uh with the memorial hymn In 261 uh well showed seems like a nice hymn but uh there are certainly some growing pains in us singing it

yeah Josh I think there was one time when I was presiding very early on and the Ecclesia just stopped and the piano stopped and we picked another him because I just picked something nobody knew and it was not an uplifting experience I was sweating bullets not that this is personal but uh yeah

yeah Steve has something to add to as well he's been resonated yeah I I just wanted to mention that I just thought of the singer is male and female to the Tabernacle in the temple and how they would sing and again I think part of it is to go and you can get a tune in your head and it helps you remember people can remember songs that they learned when they were younger or on the radio and so I think part of it is just for memory you can hear a tune and then you think of the words and that can remind you if it's

what we're talking about then we remember those and that can help us remember the scripture or at least the ideas behind the scripture

about to go right there

you know she said

hi Rich

how you doing buddy doing great

um yeah one of the things I think about too is with music is

um you know the emotion part of it that you know if you you know with with hymns

it does help like if you were in like uh you're depressed about something you're going through a trial I have found personally that the singing of hymns actually elevates my mood and uh kind of helps me to refocus on spiritual things

um and it can you know get me fired up too like you know you know kind of marching out of the out of the meeting house you know it's just like okay I'm back you know I had a tough week but man that you know you end with a good ham and a good excitation and you know it's good spiritual food

um that we need to put into our bodies and I know personally singing

helps me to do that yep yeah I've seen that rich ass was thinking about like Paul and Silas yeah all right that's right yeah they're in the stocks and they're singing hymns it's really amazing they were trying to lift each other up it's a great Point yeah

yeah yeah people find it really easy to connect with music uh it's very good it said in a certain mood getting people into a certain ad space

um you know I asked when um what people's favorite hymns were uh some people mentioned liking the old version of a hymn from the Black Book which is a place to work 20 years ago I believe I'm not sure exactly the year that was replaced but it was before my time

um which just kind of shows you know people connect very deeply to these animals but um something they heard that long ago will still be in their mind as you said you know music stays in people's heads

you know I was asking a brother Phil about his favorite uh he showed me the records of what hymns we have played over the past year with the um system because you know it tracks

um how many times we play a Chim don't have a guess what the most common hymn or the past year was and how many times you played it

seek you first

I guess it was not

how many times do you think it was it's a bigger question even since when uh the past year old past year how about we shall be like him

not quite I believe that's one my life and let it be

234. which one's that 234. I forgot nope it's a break-in I bred him uh it is not okay it is God is my strong salvation actually and we've only played it five times

it's a short one I've picked that one before you said that that's the most popular hymn that we sang in the last 12 months is the most played hymn we've sang in the last 12 months and we played it five times

I think it's the time period of some more than 12 months could be 24 months

all right

okay so he played five times in two years

yeah

wow I'm surprised I'm so sick of it

it's a good variety yeah so it's interesting uh we have all so many of the hymns so ingrained in our mind uh when compared to like your advert pops on you don't actually hear them very often at all

um if you pick basically any popular song from the 80s uh you've probably all heard it at least half a dozen times in the past year or two just in the background walking through a grocery store or an ad on TV or something

um so yeah these hymns probably especially because we sing that and they mean so much uh to us really do just stick in your head you know even years down the road once you finally hear him again just kind of Pops right back in back one thing that really stood out uh when doing this survey is how different people's reactions were to the question of what their favorite hymn was you know some people could tell me um right off the top of their head what their favorite was uh some people had several uh favorites they spent a couple minutes you know going through the Bible it's like oh I love that one that one

um some people never really thought about it before they were really surprised by the question

um some people just didn't have a favor

you know so people really could connect with him differently and I think most people appreciate it some people approach it um to different lengths can you share this list Josh

um I mean I can show the picture though I would I think Phil would have the better all right cool yeah he's got the full list I guess yeah thank you

let's say let's move on to um Josh do you know how many hymns we have sung in the past 24 months I do not curious what the uh you know if we've only sung we have sung 82. 82. 82 different hymns out of 400 or something

yeah interesting

yeah I've been currently um going through uh the hymn book just you know listening to the different hymns about halfway through uh but I've been keeping track of how many hymns I immediately recognized you know sort of recognized and didn't recognize at all so I'm at uh him too I've gone through him 219 which is about halfway through uh I immediately recognized 58 of them about 26 percent uh 65 I sort of recognized so 20 about 30 so in total at least recognized about 56 then 96 or about 43 I didn't know at all so we generally know over about at least I generally know about over half the hymns in the uh hymn book you guys probably know more than I do so we know a decent amount of them

move on to final question of um should we add more effort to add to him to add more hymns

yeah

um should we you know make an effort to add more him to our repertoire um either by trying out do him we haven't done before in the green book or by experimenting more with the PTL uh the first reason I would give for whether it be a benefit is you know new brain new hymns bring more variety uh if we just play the same hymns over and over or similar sounding hymns there are a lot of similar sounding hands in damn book uh people can start to get bored and lose focus uh they're in service a lot of hymns are sort of in that same traditional British Coral style which isn't necessarily bad but can certainly get repetitive

um some negative adding some new hymns would be as shown on Sunday some hymns could take a while to learn it can be a bit of a mess until we do learn them uh that's one thing choir recordings help with a lot

um and particularly uh while people are focusing on learning the notes of the new hymn they might not actually be engaging with as much with the actual content of the hymn and you know the message of it

and the last negative I would say is not so much a negative in and of itself but a reason not to bother is that maybe you just don't feel it's necessary uh well some hymns in the green book can certainly be similar there are a lot of really good hymns uh in a repertoire can you uh and even good hymns we all know and like don't get played there regularly um it's easy to collectively forget about them and because it's preside as a new sword is just don't pick it or for any other reason

that's it uh when I was doing the survey there's definitely some recency bias

um you know I usually ask people after service well it wasn't the majority of time it wasn't unusual for people to say you know oh I really like that hymn we just sang I think that's my favorite

um usually people would say this about him that's well liked but that we hadn't heard in a while uh so to some extent I think that does show that having a variety in the him Stockton makes people appreciate each uh him more

um because you know as yeah what's the phrase yeah absent makes the heart stronger or something like that

um so people do appreciate when it pops up on the opposite end of things even very good hymns can fall out of favor if they're played too much uh for example him 50 all people that on Earth Do Dwell doesn't give played that much anymore because I guess it get he used to get played all the time

the second reason I'll give uh as a reason to add more hymns is you know maybe they're just good hints

um we added the PTL book A couple of years ago we don't actually use fairy many songs from it uh yet uh that's it uh several people mentioned songs from the PTL as being one of their favorites

um during the survey in particular uh brother sister let me serve you uh ptl16 and um how deep thy Father's Love have asked Beyond out measure uh once 77 uh got picked a couple times

so one of the things I think that's good about the PTO is that hymns tend to be in a different style than the green book

um which you know again varies it up makes people appreciate each one more

overall I think you know trying new hymns can be both distracting uh and exciting and we're trying new hymns you maybe not focus stop on messing up him uh but on the other hand when you're just seeing the same hymns over and over uh they can lose their impact and you start stop focusing on the actual content of the hymns accounts

Josh

um yeah hymn number 50. uh that is that's probably one of the oldest hymns in our hymn book so over 500 years old it's called the old hundredth of julianola I think it was written in like uh

1535 or 15 40 or something like that so I like it just because of its tradition and it's historical um you know it's a historical place in the hymn world yeah it's good him well I thought you were a little negative on it though John no I think I think it's a good hymn but we don't play to Boston very much

um because I think it got played a lot

1561. 1561. I I confessed that comment about we used to play it all the time with uh that comes from me laughs if you can play it anytime you want it's great I I don't mind him either I just remember very distinctly for the first 15 years that I was around that every third Sunday we played that him I would be like wow we're playing that him again okay

Jim that is interesting because I think you know we obviously have our own um you know our own characteristics and our own personality I think sometimes you know when we pick hymns maybe our personality comes through those hymns you know things you know the message of the hymns you can kind of tell what's important to the preside you know and sometimes it goes along with the excitation I think it's great when you kind of meld all those things together with the words of the expectation with with the hymns as well yeah I think you know you make an interesting point from a perspot

what they call it presided from a presider perspective there's a lot that goes into uh selecting uh the hymns that you pick On Any Given Sunday and I I think that's a nice variety to have I remember um brother Steve Stewart was a presider for many years in Boston and he liked a rose shall bloom in a lonely place which is a beautiful hymn however I don't pick it I don't pick it because it's too high and Steve Steve is a high tenor singer so he loves singing it but I don't pick it because I can't hit the notes so I think I think there's a variety of things that goes into into determining why to pick a hill

but everybody has their own sort of um you know

feel on on what they pick and why I think yeah and exhausters as well a lot of times as you know the exhortas will come and say uh these are the hymns I'd like to go along with now the service um okay sure whatever one one of the limiting factors is the ability of The Pianist or organist and hymns that have five or six Flats uh played a lot less than ones that are in C major sure and the advantage with the recordings that we're using at the moment is that we that isn't a problem anymore and we can choose hymns for either melody or the words and not have to worry about can the pianists uh handle this and the good thing about the old 100th is that it isn't a very easy key and it's a relatively easy tune to play from from memory

but it does have three sharps

it doesn't make any hymns with any number of sharps or flats you like so oh wonderful

and the other thing about the PTL board um yeah PTO book is that we don't have a lot of audio for it there's we've only got audio for about 10 of the praise the Lord hymns okay that makes sense

you know Jim Sullivan it's it's Steve I I remember you um and I going to a uh seminar I think that Harry Tennant did on eldership remember that

and

and he spoke about the duties of a presider and house oh yes yes yes yes and um he spent a lot of time actually walking us through the hymn book where we were learning how to find the hymns that related to different uh in you know scriptural indexes right so if you knew that the uh exhorter was going to be speaking on first Samuel chapter three you know you knew that there was that one hymn that Josh mentioned you know that would be appropriate right

um and I think learning that hymn book in learning how to use the scriptural index is a is really a great thing for the exhorters and the presiders and the and the pianists to to use and when they are selecting hymns well when I heard that that Gabe was gonna be talking about First Corinthians nine that's immediately what I did you went to 345 about running the race with all that might run the straight race through God's good grace right because his topic and it ended up telling it nicely yeah yeah so you picked the hymns on Sunday yeah yeah and I think um you know if you have that little it jogs you back to what you just heard right yeah my connection it's good I think you know earlier night we were talking about the purpose of the different hymns and for me when I'm presiding I try it possible to conclude with something that will sort of pick up on what the exhorter might have been speaking about you know I remember a time or two Steve where you've actually changed uh the final hymn uh because the exhorter was talking about something that you said you know that goes really well with this up this other hem yeah

um what you can do you know if you've got the

um the audio music or if you've got a Pianist that's got you know a lot of flexibility you know we I was talking earlier about you know years ago and uh Dana will remember this in in the old days of presiding in Boston we had the two sisters that could play anything but they had a rule Ruth's rule was never tell me what the hymns are and Nadia's rule was you better call me the day before and tell me what the hymns are so all right so when you were presiding the first thing you had to do before you even picked the hymns is okay who's the organist do I call her on Saturday or tell her on Sunday and if you made the mistake of calling Ruth on sadly she'd say I don't know why you called me I don't need to know it's like oh okay but if you made the mistake of not telling Nadia on Saturday with the hints were on Sunday you pay the price yeah I remember that once

is it true that uh sister Ruth knew every him in the hymn book every him she played it through you never every single episode of Nadia for that matter but um I don't think either one of them that I can ever remember and maybe Bob can speak to other Dana or whoever I don't ever remember any either one of them ever saying to me now we can't play that now

and Ruth Newman by wrote she did not know what want to know what you were picking she wanted it to be a surprise on Sunday morning

Josh you you asked a question like

um you were saying

about picking a hymns that we don't know did you were you trying to say that we we know an awful lot that we don't really need to reach out to something that's new I'm saying I like the idea of you know adding ins and whatnot but one of the reasons that people might give uh why not to bother with that is you know we have a lot of hymns that we don't actually use that often that we already like you know if you added more Himes that would just kind of become more of a problem uh I guess because you'd have all these hymns that yeah you like them but you don't actually get to hear them that often maybe you know start to forget them speak

um so I like adding hymns but I think that is one note to remember is that you know uh has said I've been going through the handbook and you know looking at oh yeah that him I really liked it why don't we sing that more often you know there are just a lot of him we don't get to very often

um

you know one thought that I mean you mentioned also that sometimes when you pick at him then we've never done before we

it can be a struggle um and at one point that that's a funny story that people actually gave up um Midway through the hymn um I don't think that we have to you know well I don't know especially as Phil was saying when we have that we have you know the the choir to kind of help us through on a new one

it sometimes uh

good to

to well to get to get us thinking about a new hymn and activating new uh thinking and emotions and things like that that hymns can kind of bring to us and I think there's a scriptural admonition to it as well and Psalm 149 says praise the Lord sing to the Lord a new song his praise in the Assembly of the Saints like so I think it's a Biblical thing that to actually you know engage and try singing new new hymns

um if you look at the green book

one thing that I found really interesting is that I uh you know a brother that I met um in Kenya actually wrote a couple of the hymns in the green book and it's like these are new hymns that you know somebody you know went out of their uh way to try to craft and create a new song um and there are I guess a couple books

um Ben probably knows more about about them than I do about Gabe is telling me on the side here that we should bring in that that those new Australian books or whatever which

um I think are the hymns are pretty challenging but uh they're definitely some of them are really really nice so just a thought yeah new brings new uh new hymns sort of bring new life uh into you know the congregations so to speak um as I said that's what I liked about the PTL book

um you know they are you know they bring something new to the table um they're not

they do tend to focus uh more on sort of the message um lyrics the PTL book tends to be less complex um so it'd be interesting to add those um Australian hymn books though I don't know if we'd be ready for it

um yeah yeah interesting yeah to him saying

Dana you got something yeah just um at Midwest Bible school after the year we we send out a survey and one of the things that came back is that people would like to have a little more say in what uh hymns are being played the Prelude before a service or

um before a class or anything so

we're going to incorporate that into our I think it was going to be in our sign up website

or if not it was going to be sent out before a survey of what songs you'd like to hear so that the piano crew had a chance to look it over but it was going to give them a little more uh input a little more teeth in the game to be able to say you know I think this would be a great song for our congregation and so that's what we're going to do this year

interesting yeah

I've never heard that one before yeah

I mean it might blow up in our face

but uh yeah the thought was to get you know people wanted to be able to give a little input to uh to the hymns being played

yeah people certainly too you know

uh you'll you know do other hymns uh that you know they haven't heard in a while they really do want to hear listen I think that is one of the things uh people like about biblical and such is that you hear a lot of those hymns uh that you don't hear normally in uh you know just at your church um whether because they pick uh rare hymns or you know you have a him sing you get to hear a lot of those sorts of hymns uh you get to hear more difficult hymns here we go oh let's go here yep nice to meet you one of the things um it's just the fam uh will remember this uh we used to have years and years ago uh we used to have singing class where uh like maybe after meeting instead of you know after lunch we'd all get together and would sing hymns and we'd do the different pots and stuff like that sometimes it was at night I remember going up to Worcester and doing that as well I was I was a little kid but I really I really liked it like hearing all the brothers and sisters sing seeing them working together to create something beautiful uh as a little kid it made an impression on me that singing was important that in that um you know we were kind of in the same boat and and we had all the kind of the same spiritual understanding of things yep because that's the thing about that um yeah here we did the same thing a few years ago Peter was doing that um with the him sings and back in the day Ethel used to do that more and um you know that uh lets us learn some of the trickier hymns uh that are often very beautiful uh like a him 360 which uh we come around because it's worth to learn together which I believe we learned at um one of the hymnsings back in the day and uh we use you know fairly regularly now uh but it would be kind of a mess if you're just you know somebody to pick that one on a Sunday and we didn't know it uh there are some other hymns like that in the book that are very nice but and I don't think would be too tricky

um to learn if people already knew it you know people could pick it up just on a first attempt uh you would need to do it a him sing or something like that some some people can get used to that and um 360 is one of my and a lot of people's favorite ends so I think those uh you know him sings or him practices can be very valuable and you know brings people together to learning new things and ways to praise God yeah George I remember one of the the songs I'll hear the power of Jesus name you know crown him crown him that's what that's a beautiful hymn but if you don't if you really know how to sing it it really comes out the power of that song comes on I remember doing we were doing that him and every every you know the Altos or what whatever it is they all had their own part and when you put it all together

it was awesome it was Altos uh bases this is bassoon bassoon that was the Bobo I can't remember all four but I think it's Alto base bassoon and oboe okay got it in one

yeah I was just gonna say that um when Rich and Jason and many of the other children in our Sunday school had to come upstairs on a Sunday morning during Sunday school class and learn hymns for the um program that was going to be given in a few weeks I there was a completely different attitude that they those boys had then they were terrible trying to get to work with the hymns but they certainly have changed and I know they are very strong in hymns and so forth

let's be honest

okay if I remember you getting frustrated oh yes very importantly lost your temper yeah probably I did rightfully so

I would never know he had the same child

to be that from that child

thank you for doing that man oh you're welcome that's because Pam prayed for you that's right I mean

yeah so Josh uh one thing that struck me um about our the purpose of prayer in In sorry the purpose of hymns uh

specifically when we pray in our hymns was that we pray a lot to Jesus in our hymns

um particularly uh memorial service Memorial hymns we sing directly to Jesus praying directly to Jesus which I find

um completely comfortable when I'm singing but when I'm giving a prayer uh at at the microphone by my you know for the Ecclesia it's very uncomfortable for me to do that

um and I don't know if anybody else that has that experience uh and I I think we have um I know we have kind of a there's a almost a stigma about praying uh to Jesus from from the podium but we are very very comfortable I don't know if everybody else is comfortable or has that sensation I never get an uncomfortable sensation when I sing Loving Shepherd of thy sheep

um or there's another one I had here yeah Lord Jesus I promise I think that's yeah thank you um there's a bunch of them um but anyway I I thought that was interesting that our my mode is different when I'm singing to Jesus as uh compared to uh praying on my own uh to him yeah interesting point can I build up can I build a point on that Jim that's a great point you just made by the way thank you very much

there's a um there's a point that actually um Peter Claussen made to me once and I just want to throw it out there as a consideration because I think it was something that I've noticed and it is powerful I've actually tried to do it myself and it is this uh you know Peter has joined us many times online and a few times there in person he said to me one day I wish your closing uh person given the closing prayer was right by the microphone at the end of the closing hymn he said because it connects the hymn into the prayer and the prayer actually becomes an extension of the hymn and gives the prayer more power and I've actually tried to do that a couple times when I've asked to give him a closing prayer and I think it is

um a powerful connection as opposed to you know those few seconds where you're waiting for

um the person to come up and give the closing prayer and then it becomes sort of a gap or a breakdown oh now we're moving to something else whereas if the hymn the closing hymn ends in the closing prayer person is right there to start the prayer it feels like an extension of the hymn and I think that brings more of the congregation into the closing prayer so it was just a suggestion by be there but I think it's a good one I've done it a couple times and and I just thought it was it was um it was a powerful um part of the service

yeah and I guess uh that's advertising you know sort of I guess the overarching theme of this uh I guess class sort of thing is that you know him should be pulling you in right and what makes it bad him is if it distracts you and it pulls you out

um pulling in you and strengthening you uh hopefully tying into the talk

um and strengthening the whole system

um you know adding some life into the service you know hopefully it strengthens everything around it

I guess that's sort of The Guiding uh purpose of hymns uh that I would say

thank you Joshua appreciate it

um Jim is it okay if I should ask Josh could I get off the subject and just respond to Jim's comment about praying yeah

so I want to thank uh

Jim Sullivan

Jim thank you for having your son give us class tonight

no you see what I'm getting at

you know what Jim's brother Jim boyko said he's uncomfortable praying Jesus I

uncomfortable not doing that because I think it's it's just uh almost rude or offensive to say we know that Jesus the right hand of the god and then we're talking to God and Jesus is right there and we're saying thank you God for sending your son and we're ignoring Jesus who did the work for us

I think not only is it comfortable I think it's mandatory to give say thank you Jesus for your love to us not just thank you God for sending Jesus to me that just detaches us uh unnaturally from

from Jesus like you said there's a social or a cultural stigma we have against that because that's what other churches do no that's reality I think that's something we need to bring into our services

you're welcome

you know something I never do and and there's a reason to never do it you know we're talking about you know picking hymns when I exhort I never pick hymns and the reason I never pick hymns is because of all the times and Butch and I have actually talked about this before

um where I'll give an excitation and then the president will get up and say I had no idea what he was going to talk about but this hymn fits perfectly with what the person talked about and it happens again and again and again and again and again and it doesn't happen by accident and it's not just when I exhort I've had it happen many many times myself with you sort of gets gets up and gives his excitation I had no idea what he was going to talk about and then I say well it just so happens I picked him 222 which is exactly what he just talked about it's just it's part of the I think it's also part of the power of the presence of Jesus Christ in our midst

but I I'm not knocking those people that offer him but I don't do it for that very reason

I have a question um I don't know if it's for for Phil or or maybe somebody else but would it be possible to create some sort of playlist of hymns I know that on Sunday morning Sandy and I will sometimes listen to Chris adelphian hymns on Spotify on as we drive to meeting or you know if you tune into our live stream early enough you know Phil's playing all this music

um it'd be great to be able to do that throughout the week and to have you know Josh you talked about how

you know it's a memory aid sometimes or how these things sort of you know help you focus more um you know and to have that you know that playlist that runs through your through through your stereo speakers at home

um might be a nice thing to to have could we create such a playlist

um there's nothing stopping us from creating a playlist uh we run into copyright problems

I know when um I was looking at researching a teams and whatnot I think it was the Williamsburg Foundation website at least has uh the praise the Lord hymns I think up on their website

um that you can listen to if I'm remembering that correctly I don't believe it has all of them but yeah interesting

M's for Sunday yeah good thanks guys