A new Baptist hymnal being developed by Mercer University will make a lasting contribution to worship among Baptists in North America, say three Virginia Baptist who are involved in the project.
More than 50 Baptist pastors, church musicians, composers, scholars and laymen from across the United States and Canada gathered at Mercer University's Atlanta campus Feb. 1-2 to begin fine tuning the hymnal.
Scheduled for release in 2009, the 400th anniversary of Baptists, the hymnal is a collaborative initiative of the Townsend-McAfee Institute Graduate Studies in Church Music at Mercer and the Mercer University Press.
“It is a wonderful honor to be a part of a project that will make a lasting impression and contribution to worship within our greater Baptist family,” said Tom Ingram, worship and spiritual development consultant for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. “Baptists have always been a singing people. The Mercer Hymnal Project, guided by a wide variety of some of the most outstanding church musicians and educators from across the country, will follow in that wonderful tradition by including not only the great hymns that have taught us so much and been the vehicle through which we have been able to express our faith beyond words, but also those hymns that have been newly written and composed and that allow us to sing from our hearts and souls from within the culture and context of our contemporary world.”
During the early February meeting in the Atlanta, the project's editorial committee unveiled the official title of the hymnal—Celebrating Grace: Hymnal for Baptist Worship.
“We want all Baptists to feel connected to this hymnal,” said John E. Simons, coordinating editor of the project and director of the Townsend-McAfee Institute Graduate Studies in Church Music at Mercer University. “Grace is part of what it is to be a Baptist, to be a Christian. For all of our differences, grace is a point of common ground among all of us.”
The three-year project has purposefully taken a grass-root approach to developing and designing the hymnal in order to be inclusive of all Baptists and to be open to new ideas for meeting the resource needs of churches.
“We began this project from ground level, without a predetermined agenda,” said Milburn Price, an editor of the project and a retired dean of the School of Performing Arts at Samford University. “We have brought together creative minds, and we are listening to what is being said. The project will benefit greatly from this process.”
The men and women participating in this project include nationally and internationally recognized authorities in hymnology in North America.
“They are contributing their knowledge and talents to making this new hymnal the finest music and worship resource available to churches,” said J. Thomas McAfee III, president and chairman of Hallmark Systems, who serves as the project chair. “We are all Baptists, and while we may not always agree, many want to come together on this and make it work.”
Seminary professor Deborah Carlton Loftis echoed McAfee's description of the project's participants.
“I'm honored to be working on this hymnal project with so many outstanding colleagues who share a passion for congregational singing,” said Loftis, professor of church music at Baptist Theological Seminary. “We have an exciting task before us to gather fresh new expressions of our faith and mission while maintaining a foundational core of familiar well-loved hymns.
“Recognizing the diversity among different Baptist groups, we want to widen the repertoire to support worship for Baptists all over North America. That's a tall order, to be sure, but a challenge I'm ready to embrace. It would fulfill one of my fondest hopes if this collection of congregational song could provide one place of common ground for many Baptists to stand together.”
Also serving on the hymnal projects is David Schwoebel, minister of music at Derbyshire Baptist Church in Richmond.
“I am of course honored and humbled to serve on the hymnal committee with so many of my lifetime ‘heroes' in Baptist church music life,” he said. “I pray I'll be able to positively contribute on this project to affect the lives of others as these highly respected ladies and gentlemen have contributed to church music for years to affect my life and highly influenced my ministry practice and career.
“The task of creating a useful hymnal for Baptists in the 21st century is a tremendous challenge and opportunity. The supplemental music resources committee I serve on has been charged to assemble practical, yet creative worship materials for local churches to use in their worship services. I truly love this creative aspect of our corporate worship life. I believe it is in the innovative, thoughtful delivery of the familiar text and tune that worshippers realize a new and hopefully deeper meaning of what they have sung the same way for years.
“Our committee's work is aggressively underway to research and list everything that has ever been innovatively done on the hymns selected so fare for inclusion—choral descants, tags, intros, organ free accompaniments, handbell, solo instrument and full-blown orchestral accompaniments—and when needed, enlist writers to create new material. Jokingly, I'm glad we have three years to complete the potentially overwhelming task!”
Broad in scope and supportive of Baptist patterns of worship, the hard-bound hymnal will be published for congregational use, yet will provide planning and supplemental resources (printed and online) for church worship leaders. It will include traditional hymns, congregational songs, scripture songs, worship readings, and extensive indices. Organized in a user-friendly manner, the hymnal will feature expanded sections on such topics as baptism, the Lord's Supper, family, Advent, Lent, Easter, corporate worship and praise.
A core collection of 145 hymns has been selected for the hymnal through a survey of ministers of music across the country. To add to the core collection, committee members are reviewing and evaluating new music and hymns submitted for the hymnal. The total collection is expected to include 600 to 650 hymns, plus online resources.
“A clear distinction of this hymnal project is the new collection it will offer,” said Price. “It is like no other at this time.”
A distinction of this hymnal will be the combination of printed and online resources for worship and ministry. The first of their kind, these comprehensive companion resources will provide worship planning tools, responsive readings and litanies, as well as the history of the hymns and information on the composers and authors. It will have searchable detailed and biblical indices. Printed supplemental musical arrangements, such as for piano and organ, instrumental and orchestral, and descants and codas of varying difficulties, will be available online for immediate purchase and download.
“This online resource is a vast untapped area. No one is offering the depth and breath of information and materials we have planned,” said Stanley L. Roberts, an editor and director of choral activities at Townsend School of Music at Mercer University. “Churches of all sizes will benefit from having this tremendous addition to the hymnal.”