Ladies and gentlemen, have you heard that Concordia Publishing House has put together a new hymnal for children, One and All Rejoice? It comes out this summer. But whether you have children or not, I want to show you one of the neatest things I’ve ever come across!
Go to this page here. Download a sample if you’d like, but scroll down and get ready to geek out! Nope, not talking about 11 liturgies or other hymn stats. See the hymn timeline!!!
Yes, yes, it looks like quite a bit is recent, but all you have to do is click the arrow in the lower left hand corner. (The bendy arrow!) I love that there’s a hymn from 300AD! 340! AND DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!
Folks. I am not a swooner but I may just have done so. I think the hymns are color-coded to their season of the church year!
CPH. This timeline is rocking my world! I want timelines like this for EVERYTHING! Books! Poetry! CHURCH VOCABULARY! It is SUPER well done and I couldn’t be more thrilled with it.
Ahhhh. Unless my name were included as a hymn writer. 🙂 But I’m content working my way up to that!
Anyway, from what I can tell from the samples, there are season-specific liturgies, at least some chanting options, Luther’s Morning and Evening Prayers, the Catechism, etc. I’m thinking an accompanying book must also be necessary, since some hymns are melody-only. At least a smidge of Latin is present, which I appreciate. A few “contemporary” pieces, but generally it seems like an upstanding selecting of texts. I’m not going to fault them for teaching kids some traditional spirituals and “Ezekiel Saw Them Dry Bones.” Some chords for guitar. There are additional hymnic settings of the creed and various prayers. There’s an obvious presence of Lutheran authors, recent and historic. Looks pretty good if you’re looking for a children’s hymnal followup to My First Hymnal.
But, again, whether you’re into children’s hymnals or not, I hope you dig around that timeline. I really like that!
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This looks like a very nice hymnal, and I do love the timeline. We Lutherans need to do a better job of showing our children that the entire history of the Christian Church is ours–not just the time since the Reformation. Yet I can’t help feeling that a children’s hymnal separates children from adults. It is way too common in our culture and consequently in the Church that we act as if children need to be treated differently and fed the Word of God differently. My children are all grown now, but we homeschooled them, and as soon as they could read, we gave them their own hymnal (TLH, which my congregation still uses), and they used them in family devotions. I think, instead of a children’s hymnal, which will require congregations and schools to spend new money, the Church should emphasize teaching children how to use the existing hymnal. After all, a lot of money was spent to design LSB, and it’s supposed to be very “user friendly” so kids should have no trouble at all using it.
Thanks, Mary, for giving me an opportunity to become aware of so many great Lutheran resources!
Hello Natalie, when you look at the resources CPH has published for 150 years, it was fascinating for me to discover in our archives that some of the first things published included hymnals/song books designed specifically for children. It is a long-standing practice and has blessed many for a very long time. This, the latest version of a CPH children’s hymnal is a real gem. It can easily be used to support and enhance use of Lutheran Service Book, but the fact that we are publishing is not at all novel or unusual. Just FYI.
That’s a great thing to consider. Thanks for sharing it with us. 🙂