Hymnals and the Health of the Church

I have a feeling hymnals are going to make a comeback, and I think church health may depend on it.

In an age of screens, people are craving things they can hold that are low-tech. Research has shown that singing together lowers stress, synchronizes heartbeats, and helps to build connection. Hymnals serve as a connection point that we can touch, share, and hold in common. They are bulwarks that don’t change year to year. They don’t chase trends, and they only contain content that has stood the test of time, well beyond the four-year lifespan of the CCLI top 100.

Hymnals help us remember what we believe. We remember words more easily when a tune is attached to them. Hymns are, and have always been, sound theology set to music (which is not to say that a few stinkers haven’t crept through). Hymnals mostly contain sound theology that we can sing together, which isn’t one-size-fits-all, and is not produced by a handful of trendy megachurches.

Hymnals unite us, making all generations a part of the same song.

As a hospital chaplain, I’m with dying people every single day. I can tell you that at the end of life, the songs people sing are the ones that matter; songs with depth and substance. They sing hymns, and if not hymns, songs that they learned in the company of other believers that function like a hymn. They sing their theology, their beliefs about life, death, and God. Those songs rarely make an appearance on the top 100 charts. I wonder if this might be because hymnals are a way of remembering important things that last, and the main problem with new songs is that they have not yet been tested by time, but I still want them to continue being written. It is always interesting to see what lasts.

Blessings,

Rick Lee James



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