Church to celebrate hymnal it created
Selection process offers insight into the principles, mission and priorities of congregation
First Congregational Church of Houston has something to sing about.
The congregation is celebrating 20 years since creating its own hymnal, a major labor of love. The collection has grown in popularity over the past couple of decades — and has been adopted by 114 congregations across the country.
To commemorate the milestone, First Congregational Church of Houston is planning a year of celebration, culminating in October 2019 with a workshop, hymn-sing and worship service led by John Bell of Scotland’s Iona Community. A 16th printing of Hymns of Truth and Light is planned for late 2019.
“Music is very important in our church,” said Maggi Tucker, minister of music emeritus. “When people are singing together, they’re all breathing at the same time, moving in the same rhythm. It’s a communal experience. It helps bind a congregation together.”
And picking up a church’s hymnal provides insight into the principles, mission and priorities of the congregation, she said.
At First Congregational Church of Houston, the hymnal features tunes with a positive message and often a focus on social justice and the environment. There’s a mix of history and tradition, alongside contemporary composers with new tunes.
In fact, Tucker wrote a dozen of the songs herself.
Archaic words have been updated. Gender references to God are removed. For example, sometimes God is referred to as “father” and other times as “mother.”
The hymnal is an ideal pairing for a church that fosters inclusion, resists putting concepts of God in a box and understands faith evolves and changes with the times.
“Our first hymn is ‘We limit not the truth of God,’” Tucker said. “That gives you an indication that we don’t consider the Bible the literal word of God, as some other churches do.”
Even the title “Hymns of Truth and Light” speaks to the desire for expansive, progressive views.
It’s taken from a quote from the Puritan minister John Robinson, offering guidance to the Pilgrims before they stepped foot onto the Mayflower: “I am confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word.”
Having a hymnal that’s a perfect fit was only possible because Tucker led church members in creating the work themselves.
She became minister of music at First Congregational Church of Houston a few years after her husband Robert Tucker joined as minister.
At the time, the church was using the Pilgrim Hymnal, which was printed in 1958.
“It just wasn’t fitting our needs,” Tucker said. “We started looking at our options.”
Joining her in the search was David Nussmann, a history and music devotee who once owned the second largest collection of hymnals in the country
Nussmann was also dissatisfied with the church’s hymnal. “It was wonderful for 1958, but it was a fossil,” he said.
Nussmann explained that a revolution in modern hymn writing began in England in the 1950s and spread around the
world.
“None of that was in the hymnal published in 1958,” he said.
Still, the search for a replacement, which began in 1995, left Nussmann and Tucker emptyhanded. Each option left something to be desired.
“Finally, someone said, ‘Why don’t we make our own,’” Tucker recalled. “Now that was something we could get excited about.”
The church voted to move forward on the endeavor and a volunteer offered to head fundraising efforts.
“The next day, I had 25 calls from people who wanted to help,” Tucker said. “We knew that it could be done, because we had that type of enthusiasm.”
By the end of the project, 45 individuals had worked to create the congregation’s unique hymnal.
“On Oct. 28, 1998, we had our hymnal and used it for the first time,” Tucker said. “It was a big job, picking text, finding tunes and deciding what words to ultimately use. We looked at each hymn and considered it on its own merits.”
Some classics stayed in the mix, she said, but there were also a lot of new tunes.
“A hymn has to have some meaning for you the first time you hear it, and it has to still have meaning the 100th time you sing it,” Tucker said. “The words are very important, but you have to have a good tune with it too.”
Nussmann included a brief description of each hymn at the bottom of the page. He said that a text committee worked diligently to ensure that updates to traditional tunes were made thoughtfully.
“We have changed the language significantly, but we did it in a manner that wouldn’t upset anyone,” he said.
Nussmann has enjoyed watching the hymnal become a classic with the congregation and a regular feature of Sunday services.
“They have become familiar tunes and are just as heartily sung as the old tunes,” he said. “Song is a wonderful medium to express ourselves. The hymns in a service are just as important as the sermon.”
There have been 15 printings of the hymnal since the first edition. Word of mouth spread, and other churches started ordering the books for their own congregations.
“We were just going to do it for our own church,” Tucker said. “It was going to be used in-house. Then, for our second printing, four other churches went in on it. From that, other churches heard about it.”
Before long, Nussmann said, the churches that ordered the hymnal numbered more than 100, spreading from the East to West Coast, including First Church in Cambridge, Mass., which started in 1633, and Plymouth Church, famous for its first pastor, Henry Ward Beecher.
Churches are often drawn to “Hymns of Truth and Light” because they are able to customize their version — and able to add up to 32 of their own selected compositions.
“Allowing flexibility is something individual churches have enjoyed,” Nussmann said.
In fact, First Congregational Church of Houston’s senior minister Jonathan Page discovered the hymnal prior to joining the congregation.
“I knew about the church long before I got involved because of the hymnal,” he said.
His childhood church had started using the collection, as had a church he served in Iowa.
“My appreciation for the hymnal has grown since I’ve been here, using it every week,” Page said. “It really does reflect our church.”
Minister of music M. J. Gallop selects songs from the hymnal to match Page’s sermons.
In addition to being highly singable and catchy tunes, Page said the hymns showcase the progressive nature of the church.
“It’s really important that we believe what we sing,” he said. “There aren’t hymns about sin or the blood of Jesus. These aren’t hymns that are militant. It’s very much about justice, love and peace, fellowship with our community. These are our values.”
Funding from the sales of the hymnal to other churches goes towards an endowment to support educational and music programs.
Anne Amador created a website where churches may learn more about the collection.
“It’s been 20 years and churches are still ordering it,” she said. “We’re known for it.” Lindsay Peyton is a writer in Houston.