I love hymns. I can sing hundreds from memory. I’ve been a church musician for 20 years, always in churches that used “traditional” hymnody. I even did a PhD dissertation focused on Christian congregational music.
BUT.
I don’t love hymnals.
What I do love is projecting hymn lyrics on screens. In fact, I would love it if every single church projected hymn lyrics and everything else the congregation says/sings together.
Whatttt???? An organist who wants lyrics projected??? *checks to see if the sky is falling*
Okay now that I’ve gotten your attention, hear me out. Here’s why projecting the lyrics is so important.
(Edited to add: By talking about projecting lyrics, I’m not implying that we can’t project musical notation too. There are some excellent resources that include slides with both musical notation and lyrics – here’s one example.)
Why You Need to Project Hymn Lyrics (and Everything Else the Congregation Sings or Says Together)
The issue here is accessibility.
When you project lyrics and everything else the congregation sings or says together, you allow every sighted, literate person to participate – including people who cannot hold hymnals or orders of worship. Some are people who can never or rarely hold things, some are temporarily injured, and some happen to be holding a small child.
Just to be clear, the issue isn’t font size (although screens are much easier to read than what passes for a large print bulletin).
The issue is HOLDING something (a hymnal, a paper leaflet etc.).
Printed a large print order of worship helps folks with less-clear vision. But it doesn’t solve the problem for people who literally cannot hold something.
You might ask, But what if my church doesn’t include anyone who is disabled?
Well, then that’s a huge problem. (And if you don’t understand why, check out this podcast to get started learning why your church needs to be accessible.)
But even if every person in the congregation can currently hold things, all it takes is one wiggling toddler and now that kid’s parent can’t fully participate because their arms are occupied. If you have children in the sanctuary, this scenario plays out in every single service.
Plus, don’t you want to be prepared when a person shows up who can’t hold things?
You might ask, Are you saying my church is bad because we don’t use screens?
Not at all. In fact, the church where I minister doesn’t have screens, and I don’t think we’ll be able to project lyrics and other service elements any time soon.
Your church probably hasn’t even thought about accessibility when it comes to hymnals and printed orders of worship.
Plus, there are lots of reasons why a congregation couldn’t use screens (worshipping in the round, worshipping in a rented space, not having financial resources to install screens and run a projector etc.).
When I hear conversations about projecting hymn lyrics, I usually hear an either/or: “Either we have hymnals OR we have a contemporary worship service.”
But that’s a false dichotomy. There’s no reason a church can’t use tools like a projector for “traditional” hymnody.
And it’s a dichotomy that totally misses the accessibility issues that hymnals pose.
In the past, we couldn’t make our services more accessible because we didn’t have projectors. But now, many of us are in churches where we could easily make our services more accessible – if only we think about accessibility in the first place.
What’s your perspective? Has your church considered accessibility when deciding on hymnals and projectors?
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I don’t mind reading from the screen, but rarely is the music provided. Why should we old codgers have to guess where new tunes might be going?
Hi John,
Agreed – I think it’s great when music notation can go on the screen. There are churches that do that, and companies that produce really nice slides for that purpose. (I wonder if it was harder in the past to include notation on the slides, so now churches are in a habit of not including it?)
Hi Sarah,
The church I am about to start serving uses both. I think they have the “Glory to God” PPT edition. I just found a photo on their FB page of their Christmas Eve Service. I think making worship as accessible as possible is always a good think. I will keep you posted! https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/48414444_2069326373124830_8255231140697210880_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_oc=AQk5HUSYcrrBe4jd9epMMniPlI1ORdqtbkx48hTT2eN-iwYB93O6QvCLJjJptLwc_68&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=61a7579f0e7a9489dabdf603d17f7a7f&oe=5D7A2A2E
(P.S. let me know if this link doesn’t work)
I love it! Those also look good (not that “looking good” is the first goal, but it’s nice when screens also look good!)
Peace UCC uses hymnals but not that often…when bulletins were printed up until May 2019…most music was printed in the bulletin…so hymnals were really not necessary😊Since they did a whole series on global warming/climate change in May…bulletins will never be printed again to save 30000+ sheets of paper and a lot of money in the church budget : ) Part of Peace UCC’s commitment to help save the earth and environment😊🙏🌈💖🎸🎶🎹🎵🎤 however…now the New Century Hymnal is being used a little…again…but almost all music…very modern progressive music by Chris Grundy and many others like him😊…is in black binders in the pews and chairs seats rocking chairs etc….for folks to use….and it works great at Peace UCC here in STL by Eden Seminary and Webster University😊🙏🌈💖 We can talk more about this soon….and better yet….come visit to see for yourself one Sunday : )
Another benefit of having lyrics and/or lyrics and music on screens is that people are looking up and out– and hopefully seeing others in the process. But I also feel that there has to be an effort to include people who can’t read, or can’t see. There are so many songs that can be taught by ear.
I’m a musician and always appreciate seeing the melody. But when I worked in a bilingual Spanish/English congregation, the Spanish service never printed music (just lyrics); and the English service never printed just lyrics (always showed music notation). I wish I’d had the opportunity to mix up these traditions a bit.
There were several times where the entire congregation worshiped together- and where we sometimes learned new songs together without notation or lyrics- which put everyone on the same page. An example of a simple tune where the children’s choir sang the verses and the bilingual congregation joined on the refrain is here: https://deannawitkowski.com/jesus-christ-is-risen-cristo-resucito/
I cannot believe you are advocating for projecting words without music. (I read the 3 previous emails, and your two replies.) Let me guess: you sing soprano. What about bass, tenor, and alto? “For me, it’s about accessibility.” What about people whose voice range is a tritone below the melody line, and who would be perfect for another part? I think it’s horrible that anyone would ever, ever, advocate projecting words with no music available. That’s like saying a place will provide accessible parking spaces, but people in wheelchairs will still have to manage to get themselves and their wheelchairs up several flights of stairs, with no elevator. I’m even discomfitted when a hymnal is melody only, with no alto, tenor, and bass.
Hi Ralph, I think projecting with music can be wonderful in many congregations and there are quite a few resources that make this possible – the Glory to God hymnal is a great case in point since the publishers sell slides for all the hymns with both words and music. Using a projector doesn’t mean music can’t be included in the slides.
Do you have a sense if congregations learn more/better by ear when they aren’t used to reading music? I have wonderfully proficient musicians in my choir, but they really struggle learning music by ear.
Thinking more about including people who can’t read or see …. It’s one thing I love about church services that have predictable elements (recurring prayers or songs), so that the service can be at least some what accessible. With the pre-literate children I work with, I’ve been trying to do songs that they will hear regularly in services so that they have something they know to sing.
There are good things about projections: your head is up, so you sing better; you don’t have anything to hold; music can be included for music readers; you can make the text (and notes) large and legible.
But there are problems, too: equipment costs money, and some churches are mostly windows, so screens would be even more costly; someone has to create the slides – or at least find them and put them in order – every week; someone has to operate the equipment, changing screens at EXACTLY the right moment.
And as a visitor to many churches, I often find things I want to use. IF there is a printed bulletin, I have the reference to take home with me.
So, I like the idea, but I don’t like the idea. 😀
During the time that my cataracts were developing but but not quite ready to be removed, I was unable to read the large print words on a screen because my lenses were too filmy. Please realize that people with cataracts or other eye issues also have this problem that makes reading from a screen very frustrating, if not impossible. I suggest the best option is to offer both, if a screen is deemed really necessary.