Looking for new worship music for your church? Check out this link for an excellent article regarding the modern hymn movement. Though it is about a year old, it is the best resource, and contains a lot more than the excerpts below:
You may not know it, but today there is a modern hymn movement. I think I can call it a movement. Writers such as Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, and ministries such as Sovereign Grace Music, and Indelible Grace are each contributing to a modern drive to bring hymns back to a prominent place in Sunday morning worship.
Common Vision
Behind the hymnwriting of Getty and Townend, and the hymn promotion of both Sovereign Grace Music and Indelible Grace, lies a common vision. Keith Getty expresses his concern that: “It’s been several hundred years since Christian worship was as shallow as it is today.” Sovereign Grace Music specifically aims to write and promote songs with “biblically based lyrics” with “a passionate, Cross-centered focus”. Indelible Grace aims to set older hymns to modern music in an effort to “enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace”.
Different Approaches
Indelible Grace explains their particular approach: “Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace.” Indelible Grace’s website is really a great resource on hymns in general. They not only provide high quality CDs with new music for many familiar hymns, they also resurrect many hymns that the church has largely forgotten. You can listen to long previews of their music online, and also read the stories behind many hymns.
Sovereign Grace Music specializes in writing modern praise and worship songs. They also, however, have given us new melodies/arrangements of older hymns {Alas and Did My Savior Bleed; Hallelujah, What a Savior; Like a River Glorious}, additional lyrics (reworded verses, additional verses, or additions of a chorus) along with new music for older hymns {Before the Throne of God Above; O God, Our Help in Ages Past; Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me; The Look} , as well as writing some songs that would pass as new hymns {I Will Glory in My Redeemer; Mercies Anew; The Glory of the Cross; Receive the Glory}. Also, they recently produced Upward: the Bob Kauflin Hymns Project, which showcases much of their excellent work with regard to hymns. Many of these alternate versions of older hymns are being used in contemporary churches.
Stuart Townend and Keith Getty have taken the approach of writing modern hymns. With the writing of “In Christ Alone” in 2001, they began a movement for writing modern hymns. Since then they have written, either conjointly or independently, many of these modern hymns and in effect created a new genre of worship music. Keith Getty’s website explains:
Keith Getty is a modern hymn writer. His hymns such as “In Christ Alone”, co-written with Stuart Townend, have created a new genre of ‘modern hymn’ unique today in popularity throughout traditional, contemporary and liturgical churches. In these new hymns they aim to both teach people the big picture of the bible and create a form of contemporary worship which relates to both the past and the future….
UPDATE: Reformed Praise is another organization which is “dedicated to bringing together the rich tradition of hymnody, especially from the reformers or those directly influenced by them, with the modern worship song movement”, much like Indelible Grace mentioned above.
modern hymns? Listen to Hymns from Nineveh!
http://www.myspace.com/hymnsfromnineveh