Overview

Small churches have always carried a large song. In sanctuaries with a few pews, in country chapels, in town churches with aging congregations, in home gatherings, nursing homes, fellowship halls, and borrowed rooms, the people of God have continued to sing. Sometimes there is a choir, and sometimes there are only a few faithful voices. Sometimes there is an organ or piano, and sometimes there is only a guitar, a song leader, or the congregation itself. Yet where two or three are gathered, praise still rises. The Small Church Hymnal has been prepared for congregations like these. This book is not intended to be an encyclopedic hymnal containing every worthy hymn. Rather, it is a carefully chosen collection of familiar, singable, durable hymns for ordinary Christian worship. Its purpose is practical: to provide small congregations with a body of hymns that can be used confidently for Sunday worship, prayer meetings, funerals, communion services, baptisms, weddings, home visitation, nursing-home services, seasonal worship, and times of grief, thanksgiving, and hope. The hymns included here have been selected with several guiding convictions. First, a hymn for a small church must be singable. A small congregation cannot depend on a large choir to carry difficult music. The best hymns for such a setting are sturdy, memorable, and clear. They can be sung by older voices, by children, by a congregation of fifteen, or by a roomful of worshipers gathered around a piano. Second, a small-church hymnal should be pastorally useful. The life of a congregation includes more than Sunday morning praise. It includes illness, death, loneliness, new birth, confession, forgiveness, marriage, aging, service, and quiet endurance. For that reason, this hymnal includes hymns for comfort, grief, trust, prayer, discipleship, and the hope of eternal life, along with hymns of praise, thanksgiving, and proclamation. Third, a hymnal should help preserve the shared memory of the Church. Many of the hymns in this collection have been sung for generations. They connect today's worshipers with parents, grandparents, saints, reformers, missionaries, poets, pastors, and ordinary believers who found in these songs a language for faith. In a time when music can become temporary and fragmented, these hymns offer continuity, depth, and common ground. Fourth, this hymnal is designed for real worship under real conditions. Many churches do not have trained musicians every week. Many cannot maintain large choirs. Many need music that works simply, reverently, and reliably. The hymns in this book are intended to serve such churches without embarrassment or apology. Small congregations do not need lesser worship; they need worship resources shaped to their actual life. This hymnal is also offered in gratitude for the older small hymnals that served earlier generations. They remind us that a church does not need abundance in order to sing faithfully. A modest book of strong hymns, chosen well, can sustain a congregation through years of worship, sorrow, celebration, and service. May these hymns strengthen small churches. May they give voice to prayer when words are hard to find. May they comfort the grieving, encourage the weary, teach the young, steady the old, and gather scattered hearts into one song. And may every congregation that uses this book discover again that the song of the Church is not measured by its size, but by the faith, hope, and love with which it is sung.

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