Do We Really Need to Keep Singing Hymns?

“Another bestselling author can rise in the time it takes to froth a Latte. And they’re gone before you finish your cup. Rich, thoughtful, timeless truths are so hard to come by. How do we cut through the fog? Give me something ancient. Something that has stood the test of time. I want some of that.” - Church Leaders

Discussion

No, but there are a LOT of things that I technically don’t “need” to do from which I benefit greatly. Ancient hymns are among them.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Bert Perry]

No, but there are a LOT of things that I technically don’t “need” to do from which I benefit greatly. Ancient hymns are among them.

Indeed.

Dave Barnhart

We started singing the psalms in 2015 when I started preaching through them. I love the connection with past generations of believers going back to the earliest days of church history.

Why wouldn’t every NT church make Psalms a part of their congregational singing? We’ve been doing it for years. This past year, we announced “Summer in the Psalms” on Wednesday nights, expositing one of the Psalms, and singing that same Psalm, usually in more than one version. We often repeated at least one version the following Sunday morning. (And yes, we saw an increase in Wednesday night attendance.)

G. N. Barkman

Plus one for Psalms.

I also think the author makes one of the best arguments out there for singing old hymns. Too many congregations have no doctrinal or spiritual awareness of their historical context…. no sense of connection to anything bigger than their own local church. I believe in local church autonomy, but the body of Christ is not supposed to be comprised of isolated congregations who all function as though nothing important happened before 2015 (or 1815, for that matter… whatever of the year of their oldest song is).

Sing the Psalms. Sing the ancient hymns. Read the creeds. Tie history into sermons.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.