I have the privilege of teaching college students, most of whom are called into full-time ministry. Some will be missionaries, some will be pastors, some will be youth directors, some will be worship pastors etc., and I am never bored with young people of this age. Their passion and eagerness makes them a joy to teach (most days!), and I love the fact that most of them aren’t jaded. Too often Bible college and seminary students let their vast learning turn them into jaded cynics, which is precisely the opposite of what should be the case. Theological education should lead to humility and worship, but that is a post for another day.
Here is a picture of one of my favorite students, many of whom wear some of the most interesting t-shirts. It says, “Save the Hymnals.” If you have had your ear to the ground in recent years, there seems to be a growing number of young people lamenting the latest trends in the arena of Christian worship. There is a growing number of the church’s future leaders who love to sing (and even prefer) the old-school hymns over much of the new worship music. I have had more than one student refer to much of the newer worship music as “chaff” that they are choking on. As a result there is a strong desire to return to substance, singing songs rich in doctrinal truth. To be sure, not all hymns are good (see “The Savior is Waiting” as a prime example), and not all modern worship music is bad (see “How Great is Our God,” or “Speak O Lord”). What seems to be the driving force among my students is doctrinal content. I applaud this since (good) hymns can teach us so much about God.
In fact, if there is something that consistently gets a rolled eye or smirk it is much of the newer music. What I repeatedly hear is the desire for content in the music, which I love to hear, and there seems to be a preference of content over style. Of course, many hymns are being rewritten so that there is both style and content, but even beyond this, there is a desire to return to hymnals! Anathema! Perish the thought!
I do personally lament the loss of hymnals in our churches. As a result, there are no harmonies being sung, and no one can read music. In the past, it was in church, singing the hymns, that many people learned to read music, and as such there was such a thing as harmony to accompany the melody. I get so bored only hearing the melody, and our worship is less than it should be.
Can someone tell me why we so quickly jettisoned having hymnals in church? Can this be traced back to, and blamed upon, the “seeker-sensitive movement”? It seems that in a matter of just a few years we abandoned them, and it seems that there is the feeling that a church is in the dark ages if they still use hymnals. I realize that this coincides with the abandonment of hymns altogether in many circles, which is to the Church’s loss. That will be another post for the near future. We will dialogue about this more in the future. Or at least I will post on this. Whether there is dialogue is up to the reader.
Perhaps I am just an “old fart” at age 32, but as for me, I’ll stand with my 20 year old student and herald: “save the hymnals!”
