Companions,
As some of you may have heard by now, the effort to create a new United Methodist Hymnal for the United States has been officially halted. A link to the UMNS story/press release is included here and below.
Hymnals have been very important in Methodism from the earliest days. Back in England, the hymnals published by John and Charles Wesley were not found in pews of congregations, but in the shirt pockets of Methodists. Why? Because in most of the churches in England at the time, including the Church of England and many Presbyterian and Baptist groups, hymn-singing was banned in public worship. Why? Because what was to be sung were the pure words of scripture (psalms) and the ancient prayers of the church (spiritual songs), not the "man-made" texts one found in hymns.
There were some notable exceptions. Isaac Watts wrote for his fairly Calvinist, separatist congregation, and other congregations of like order had no trouble singing these texts. But they were the minority, the vast minority in England in the 18th century. They were the minority in North America at the time, too.
Which meant, for the Methodists, most of whom would have attended Church of England congregations, the hymnals were for Sunday night meetings of the society, for class meetings, and for daily personal and family use.
Think of the early Methodist hymnals as the iPod (R) of Methodists. They were literally carrying their songs with them wherever they went.
This was hymnal as missional collection. This was hymnal intended and practiced as "making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." Why? Because they weren't singing these songs "in church"-- and certainly not only "in church." They were singing them every day of their lives, wherever they went.
With the demise of the current US hymnal project for the UMC comes the opportunity not only to re-think what a hymnal for US congregations might be, but to ReBe a hymnal in the Wesleyan tradition-- to bring about a new Methodist Missional Hymnal, a missional iPod (R) for the 21st century.
Keep in mind, too, that the early Methodist hymnals were all "public domain." Individual intellectual property rights (and with it, copyright law and DRM) didn't exist back then. That meant that these songs could spread freely in both print and oral versions and mutate as they needed to locally, and no one got into trouble for it (John Wesley's almost imperious "Instructions for Singing" notwithstanding).
It was missional text and music that could go viral. It was a collection that could "fractal."
So who wants to ReBe a hymnal for the UMC-- one that substantially contributes toward the project of making disciples of Jesus Christ who function as missionaries of God's reign wherever they are because disciples sing these things wherever they are and can legally spread them freely wherever they go?
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Plans for UM Hymnal Revision Halted for 2009-2012 Quadrennium
9 comments:
A shame but not unexpected. I for one would like to see a "refresh" of the hymnal and provide more tunes that are accessible to the average congregation with a smattering of the advanced tunes. (note-not the majority of the melodies passed off in CCM, which often have a painfully narrow range or are set in a painfully bad tessitura) In addition, some new texts on the level of a Brian Wren would be very welcome.
Brian and all:
As the news release notes, the New United Methodist Hymnal Facebook Group is still active.
If you've not joined it, I'd encourage you to consider doing so.
If you have, go ahead and post your comments and suggestions there, too.
Peace,
Taylor
Taylor,
Thanks for the reminder. Done!
Taylor, you can sign me up for this project.
Taylor,
I've proposed an idea that would facilitate the creation of such a hymnal that you envision. Check it out and your response is welcome:
Call for a People-Powered Hymnal
Copyright issues aside, a missional hymnal should have some U2, Dylan, Springsteen, Coldplay, etc. in it. Makes it more than just songs you have to be in the club to know.
Jeremy,
Actually, I proposed that the HRC do a lot of its work in a wiki format-- and created a presentation for the steering committee to how that could be done. Didn't go anywhere. A wiki was created. That was all.
I do think a people powered hymnal project could be a good thing. I could see a lot of congregations of all sorts signing onto it over time.
It would not be something the UMC or the UMPH would be likely to adopt, however. And not just because of the money. The issue is control. General Conference tends to want to control who is on the committee, who has input, and then the leadership wants to control what kind of input they or others (consultants) may have. Re-read the legislation. You'll see that all over the place.
I'm not saying that's entirely a bad thing. The representative process is a one proven way to ensure that some kind of diversity across the church gets heard. It may not necessarily be the best way to ensure that the final product is as strong in itself as it could be.
But back to your proposal.
As I said, I think a lot of congregations of all sorts of denominations might want to be part of something like this.
But massive participation for a book/resource for congregations does not mean that the resource produced would necessarily be more missional. It might just be more popular. For congregations.
And that's a fine thing, too.
But congregations, de facto, aren't missional.
So if we're looking for a collection that is-- that goes WITH disciples wherever they go, that intentionally forms and supports them in the way of Jesus-- not just songs they like but songs that change them or reflect the changes in them-- perhaps the first thing we need, just as in any open source software project, might be some "core developers" to help figure out what a "missional kernel" looks like.
We can probably get a pretty good clue about that from the early Methodist collections that weren't intended for use in congregations.
But that's some initial work-- or at least some parallel work while other sorts of things are happening-- that, I think, needs to get started.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor
Have you all seen the idea from Jeremy Smith (aka @umjeremy) ?
http://blog.hackingchristianity.net/2009/05/call-for-people-powered-hymnal-umc.html
Right, Carl.
See my comment in response to Jeremy's proposal above.
I don't propose my response is a final word. I do think the constraints that the UMC places on hymnals, however, would make it more than a little difficult to accomplish AND be considered an official hymnal for this church. AND I don't know that the result would actually be a missional collection, per se.
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