Which hymnal did your Fundy church use?

[Tiarali]

We used Songs and Hymns of Revival, I think.

[Tiarali]

(02-27-2012 10:28 PM)Darren Wrote:  For many years I thought that was the worst hymnal ever, until I went to a friend's church that used the Songs and Hymns of Revival. That one is atrocious.

Bahahahahaha!!!

[Tchaiko]

Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns here. It was interesting to notice that, while the first edition had several favorite hymns of famous preachers in it, the second edition was lacking a few (Bob the father, son, and holy third). I assume that Rice already had his spat with them by that point.

[True Fundy]

Fortunately, I didn't grow up IFB so I didn't have to put up with some of the stuff other people around here did. However, I have had my share of experiences in attending IFB church's on a long time basis. Here's my take on the hymnals we used. I am a musician and most IFB people are not so perhaps most don't have the issues I have.

LIVING HYMNS
No recommendations here. Far too large for one thing. IFB never sing even half the hymnal so most of the songs included would never be sung anyway. Other reasons are:

1) Way too many Al Smith songs and way too many notations on the bottom of the songs that say " © 1972 Living Hymns".
2) The layout is cheap. It appears as though he used the templates of other hymnals instead of using his own. This also means key signatures are too inconsistent. Some songs are too high while others are almost too low.
3) The hymnal isn't classified and with it being so large, it's too difficult to find the particular song you're looking for.
4) More indexes would be helpful.

They have reprinted it recently and some of the issues have been fixed. But overall, this hymnal has too many problems for it to be used effectively.

SONGS AND HYMNS OF REVIVAL
Don't even get me started on this one. Whoever put this together doesn't know anything about putting together songbooks (this is a songbook by the way, NOT a hymnal). It's not classified so it's hard to find the song you're looking for. The key signatures are WAY TOO HIGH to sing a lot of the songs included in comfort. And way too much emphasis on gospel songs and not enough on other genre's (real hymns like "O Worship the King".)

Saying all that, hymnals like Majesty's new "Rejoice Hymns" have promise. They lowered the keys so you're not straining to reach those impossibly high notes. There's hope when previously distained authors like Bill Gaither and Steve Gettys are included. I've heard Frank Garlock denounce Bill Gaither so I think it's a minor miracle he's included some of his songs.

IMHO, on the songbook side of things, most IFB's could do much better.

[lillypie82]

We used Living Hymns, but didn't have orchestrations for it, so the orchestra (all 5-10 of us) played out of the Great Hymns of the Faith orchestra books, so we had to look up all the songs before the service and cross-reference the page numbers. Some songs were in the Living Hymns but not the Great Hymns, and then we had to either sit out or play straight out of the hymnal (luckily I played flute and didn't have to transpose!)

Then we got a new music director (who was actually very very old & old-fashioned) and for some reason we switched to the Hymnal for Worship and Celebration, even though we still sang only the same hymns that had been in Living Hymns, and once in a while a chorus that NOBODY in the church had ever heard except for the music director. And we had giant orchestra books that went along with it and had actual orchestrations, but 90% of the orchestra could not even ATTEMPT to play them correctly.