The Demise of the Hymnal
The Modern Hymnal: Come Buy Here!
It’s only about six years since the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America published its first new worship book (liturgies and hymns) in about 25 years. The official preceding hymnal was used for only about 25 years. The hymnal before that was used a bit longer and the hymnal before that even longer. The life of a hymnal is getting shorter and shorter. It may be extinct.
Today there is no need for a hymnal. But there is a need to fund the offices that create worship resources. Publishing and promoting a new hymnal may sound like a way to keep money flowing.
In our 65 church visits, almost no churches use the hymnal for the liturgy and rarely reference them for hymns. The expensive hymn books gather dust in the hymn racks.
Many churches have not bothered to invest thousands of dollars to restock their hymn racks with the latest official worship publication. Those that have would probably have spent their money more wisely elsewhere. It doesn’t look like there is much future for physical hymnals.
Here is why hymnals are an outdated idea.
- The liturgies they include are meant to unite congregations in tradition. When a member visits another congregation, he or she will feel at home. But then they have included a fairly large number of liturgy choices. Most congregations use only one or two. So the unity objective works only if every church chooses the same one or two.
- People can publish their own liturgies now. They are mixing and matching from various traditions and popular songs from Christian radio — and church camp! Try as the church might, those liturgies are going to be mutilated from their intended use. Nothing wrong with that, by the way.
- Hymnals are heavy. This newest one is like a barbell. Maybe I’m getting older. Maybe most church people are getting older.
- People like to sing what they like to sing. If their favorites aren’t in the hymnal (and many aren’t) they are going to reprint them from another source, leaving the hymnal in the rack. The notion that the denomination has approved the theology and tweaked the wording to suit their spin, making sure God hears the right words of praise, sung to the most pleasing (if obscure) tune, well, it just won’t sell anymore.
- People today have ready and relatively free access to words and chords. The internet is one big fake book.
- If a stated goal is diversity, we have to look outside one hymnal to reach people. The world is so much bigger than any one hymnal can ever be…unless…
The wisest direction for those entrusted with liturgical integrity is to take their work and message online. That’s where many people turn when putting together a worship service these days. A new economic model will be needed, but that has to happen anyway. The next hymnal ten or fifteen years down the road is not likely to sell.
There is a big opportunity to pioneer such a web service. The Church can tackle it or wait for someone else to corner this audience.
- If they choose to tackle it, they will reach a much broader audience than their own denomination. Denominational thinking keeps us from realizing this!
- They can publish and promote new music in real time—not every 20 years.
What a mission opportunity!