Contemporized Hymns???

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Permalink Reply by Wayne Pau on March 8, 2010 at 7:29pm

Chris,

That sounds exactly what we try to do at our local church. We have a huge age range in the congregation, so we try to have at least one hymn per week.

I've had great success at getting ideas from other Christian artist who have done this. Here are some ideas:

4Him - Hymns: A Place of Worship
Avalon - A Hymns Collection

I also think there was one by Bart Millard/Mercy Me called:

Bart Millard - Hymned No. 1
Bart Millard - Hymned Again

Chris Tomlin also did a remake with Take My Life and Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone.

There also seem to a number of more "generic" blended worship CD available at my local Christian Music store. We do that as well, like this coming week we are doing I Surrender All into Surrender by Marc James.

Hope that helps... =) Probably a ton more out there too...

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Permalink Reply by J Pettigrew on March 8, 2010 at 7:31pm

Just about every hymn has been redone with a more contemporary spin on it. I would suggest you simply use Google to search for the name of a familiar hymn, and add the name of some of our more recent worship leaders. For instance, Chris Tomlin, Paul Baloche, Matt Redman, Brenton Brown, Charlie Hall, etc. Most of them have done one version or another, and will the Google search will likely take you on a trail to more than those you search for.

I know this is not very specific, but I hope it helps.

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Permalink Reply by Zac Hicks on March 9, 2010 at 2:28pm

"Just about every hymn" is true if we've grown up in the traditional evangelical church, but that normal list of hymns (How Great Thou Art, Just As I Am, I Surrender All, Great is Thy Faithfulness, etc.) is hardly the best list. There is a goldmine of old, forgotten hymns that have yet to be tapped by folks like us. I'm sad that we only talk about the same 20 songs as our heritage of "old hymns." Probably 18 of those 20 won't be around too much longer, and there are literally thousands of others whose texts are grand--great theology, gospel centered, biblically informed--and worth resurrecting.

Just a plea to think differently about our hymn heritage!

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Permalink Reply by J Pettigrew on March 10, 2010 at 2:14pm

I stand corrected... you're right, I should have said just about every POPULAR hymn. I'm with you. I've been scouring my hymnals for songs that have not been redone, but would sound great using a more modern sound.

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Permalink Reply by Zac Hicks on March 10, 2010 at 2:41pm

Nice! May God bless that effort! I'd love to hear any hymn resets you do, too.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Grunden on March 9, 2010 at 3:17am

One of my favorites is the Passion (Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman) rendition of "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" (The Wonderful Cross).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dQsNlIifM

I keep it simple by playing it in D, which works well range-wise for congregational singing.

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Permalink Reply by Zac Hicks on March 9, 2010 at 4:56am

Hey Chris,

If by "Contemporized Hymns" you mean the original tune, just "jazzed up," check out:
iWorship Hymns
Passion's Hymns Ancient & Modern

But check out this blog post about why that's not the best "hymn updating" approach.

If you want a more creative, historic, and robust take on re-setting hymns, I'd recommend:
Indelible Grace
Red Mountain Church
Our stuff

The top two are the best, but here's the full list of folks doing this.

Hope this helps!

Zac

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Permalink Reply by Chris Brinkley on March 9, 2010 at 5:00am

thanks everyone, that was just what I needed!

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Permalink Reply by Crystal Barker on March 9, 2010 at 6:07am

Hey Chris,

I am not trying to shamelessly self promote haha....but we actually just recently wrote a song/arrangement like that called Surrender It All featuring the hymn I Surrender All. We did this because our Pastor was really wanting more hymns and hymn arrangements and we didn't have many either! If you want to check it out it's on my profile page...feel free to use if you like it. Also, we started doing the Tomlin arrangement of How Great Is Our God/How Great Thou Art and that went over really well with our congregation. Another one we used was It Is Well With My Soul...we put a modern sound with it but sang the hymn as written...they seemed to love that too...another one was Oh The Wonderful Cross ...anyway, hope this helps! :)

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on March 9, 2010 at 1:00pm

An updated hymn that we do is "Before the Throne of God Above". The text was written by Charlie Bancroft in 1863 and then the melody of the verses were updated in 1997 by Vikki Cook of Sovereign Grace Ministries. The chorus was added later.

Here is a couple videos of us doing that song.. it's pretty pretty easy to play and I can send you chord charts if you need them.

Full Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C1mlV0HQeo

Solo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSDcOuzwuN4&feature=related

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Permalink Reply by David Harrell on March 10, 2010 at 2:43pm

A couple that we use are:

Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King - Gateway Worship
New Doxology - Gateway Worship
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) - Chris Tomlin
Oh, For A Thousand Tongues - David Crowder
How Great Is Our God with How Great Thou Art - Chris Tomlin
We occasionally tag a worship song with Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
Take My Life (and Let It Be) - Chris Tomlin
Years ago 4Him did a neat arrangement of Be Thou My Vision.
There are several good arrangements out there of I Stand Amazed.



Hope this provides some help.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Cottrill on June 15, 2010 at 12:39am

H-m-m... It seems to me the wording speaks volumes--"this church throws one hymn into the mix every Sunday." Sounds rather like a bone tossed to a barking dog to keep him quiet! This approach is all too familiar. A church committed to contemporary music, that tries to keep the old folks from complaining by "throwing in" the occasional hymn--often with a mangled arrangement that does nothing to improve on the original. This is not a "blended" approach; it is more like playing politics with the musical heritage of the church. How would you feel about a service of hymn singing that "throws one praise chorus into the mix every Sunday"?

Some 40 years of studying English hymnody, and writing extensively on the subject, has convinced me that any local church that abandons the hymn book leaves its congregation seriously impoverished. I know, "different strokes for different folks." I'm just offering another point of view for your consideration.

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