Does your church have hymnals in the seating? Does your church sing (vintage) hymns?

We still have hymnals in the seats, but project all song lyrics on a screen. Many of the songs we sing are not in the hymnal (this includes newer music like hymns by the Gettys and Church Works Media as well as metrical Psalms and ancient hymns like those of Ambrose). Every once in a while someone will use a hymnal, but most of the time they are not taken out anymore.

>>Every once in a while someone will use a hymnal, but most of the time they are not taken out anymore.<<

Sadly, this is indeed the norm. I’m one of the few troglodytes that still pulls out a hymnal when I’m in the pews, either at my own church or at other churches. Most of the time in my home church, I’m in the choir, so there I have access to music for the projected songs that are not in the hymnbook.

I recently visited a friend’s church where they also sang a combination of songs that included hymns as well as other songs. I used the hymnbook where I could (I was one of maybe 3 people total using one), and for one projected-only song (lyrics only), I found and pulled up the sheet music on my phone (I have a foldable, so in tablet mode, the sheet music is small, but still usable). The other projected song actually included music. My friend told me they often do that for a few weeks with new songs they are learning, but after that time, it goes to lyrics only.

I realize that most people can’t or don’t read the notes they are singing, but I begin to understand the whole shape-note singing movement once prevalent in the U.S. (now usually only seen at churches in the deep South or midwest) that taught people to how to sing tunes they didn’t already know. I dread a future where everyone sings only the melody and only a few songs that everyone knows. I hope that isn’t coming, but I don’t know what would stop it. Since I’m one of the old guys now, maybe I’ll be gone before it gets that far.

We have hymnals, but they are not in the pew/seats. We do not have pews and the chairs do not have a pocket for hymnals, so we just have them on a shelf and people grab them when they come in. We make extra effort to make sure visitors get a hymnal when they sit down.

Like most of the others, we have them, but are not using them much. I’m not sure if they are in the seats anymore or not. But we do sing hymns regularly.

Once in a while we have an old fashioned hymn sing. I haven’t been to that yet, but I think the hymnals get a workout at that event.

Along with Dave, I'm missing the harmonies of the hymnals that are no longer there-sometimes I'll see if I can do one I remember, and then I learn the arrangement has changed. On the bright side, sometimes it's straightforward to figure out harmonies on the new stuff.

>>Along with Dave, I’m missing the harmonies of the hymnals that are no longer there-sometimes I’ll see if I can do one I remember, and then I learn the arrangement has changed. On the bright side, sometimes it’s straightforward to figure out harmonies on the new stuff.<<

Most of the newer songs or newer arrangements of older songs played these days have their accompaniment/chords written in such a way to make puzzling out harmony (at least on the fly) very difficult, even if the melody itself would be simple to harmonize as Bert said. And even when you can figure it out later, it doesn’t always allow for good multipart harmonies with that accompaniment. It’s almost as if the whole intent is either to prevent 4-part singing, or to prioritize the musical accompaniment while making the congregation essentially background singers.

If your church uses one of those hymnals that has optional last verses for many songs with a change of key and accompaniment, you will note that those are meant to have everyone come together to sing the melody on the final verse. Many (most?) modern church songs have the entire song written that way. It’s almost as if it’s an intentional movement toward sidelining the congregation as the primary focus of the hymns in order to put the focus on the stage instead. Or maybe I’m just a “bitter clinger” to old-school hymnals… Perhaps it’s time for me to find and join a local “Sacred Harp” sing.

No, you definitely have a point.

The shift to stage focused worship music is also a shift toward congregational passivity—or spectatorship, if that’s a word.

Not that everybody is doing that on purpose. But stuff happens in a cultural context. In our culture, if you put a band on stage, those not on the stage assume they are an audience. They might sing along, but it’s not the same. It’s a concert.

So a lot of churches are just sticking with old music. Others are trying to use new music but without a band and sung in a congregational way. But it’s an awkward fit a good bit of the time, because the music is written for a band. There isn’t really any soprano in a lot of the songs, because they’re all written in the alto range. And it’s assumed that there will be no melody in the accompaniment a good bit of the time. That’s the lead singer’s job. But congregations need help hearing the melody. So how are you going to do that if it’s down around G or A all the time? Well, you need talented vocalists who can belt out a strong melody while the band is chording and such. But how many churches can do that consistently?

So it’s a dilemma. There are newer hymns that are written in a more hymn-like range with hymn-like accompaniment. But there are also a lot of newer songs that don’t work very well like that.

Congregations sing exuberantly when they know the song, are confident that they know the song, and they love the song. … it’s really OK if the song is old. I think it’s also OK if it’s new, but we have to be realistic about the challenges that presents for congregational singing.

One thing to note is that if you watch concert footage of secular music, the audience is participating. Raising arms, signing along, dancing, etc.. Now we might want some different reasons for this participation than we see in, say, "hair metal", and some somewhat different displays of this participation, but at least we know that modern music is not synonymous with passivity. I think that the trick is to get something that people know and appreciate, both intellectually and emotionally.