Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #607748 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Wonderful variety but some serious flaws
This compact hymn supplement contains a wonderful variety of hymns and songs for contemporary and blended worship in the Reformed tradition. But it suffers from several serious flaws that limit its usefulness in actual worship:

1. To save space, many of the songs require the singer to understand the musical notation that sends one to a different part of the text, either backward or forward, such as the coda, and alas, few congregations will understand this.
2. Many of the songs have only the refrain, with the notation "stanzas included in other editions." Fine, but what if you want everyone to sing the stanzas?
3. There is only one index, for first lines and common titles, leaving the worship planner who is seeking an alternate tune or a song to fit a particular theme or Scripture reading to leaf aimlessly through the book in hope of finding something. Look in the back of most standard hymnals and you will see a number of indexes designed to help with worship planning that this book lacks.
4. Unlike the Presbyterian Hymnal there is no digital version (to my knowledge, at least) leaving the pastor with limited musical knowledge having to hunt somebody to play a new song on the piano or other instrument in order to hear what it sounds like. Admittedly the digital version is a bit of a luxury but it would in itself make the indexing problem less of an issue.
5. Finally, and most disconcertingly, sometimes the song in the accompanist's edition has significant differences from the pew edition. This is catastrophic if only discovered in the moment of singing in worship.

For these reasons I only rate it a 3 star item. But in its favor, it contains a diverse selection of music with texts that adhere theologically to the Reformed tradition (well, for the most part - but that's the best you can say of any Presbyterian hymnal!). Many of them are very singable and a surprising number are set to familiar tunes. There are a number of contemporary Christian music pieces as well. It's definitely worth acquiring as a supplement for a choir, or a desk item for pastors and music directors, but think carefully before purchasing a large number for congregational use and never forget to match the accompanist's edition version with the pew edition's version before you include a song in worship. This is the voice of experience speaking.

Great Worship Resource
This is a great supplement to the Presbyterian Hymnal. Pastors and music directors should have it on their bookshelves. It would even be a great resource to add to the pew racks!