By its very name, the congregation is the largest choir we have at Broadway! Every Sunday we are compelled by the awe-inspiring Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ to lift our voices in praise to our Creator as a corporate act of worship. At Broadway Baptist Church, we intentionally select a hymn that expresses our worship theme, enhances a specific element within the service, or guides us along the church year calendar. It is our hope that the combination of the text and tune inspires us to live out our faith along our spiritual pilgrimage.
To this date, we have sung 111 different hymn texts within our worship services. The vast majority of them have been very familiar, some not so much, and a few totally new to our hymnody at Broadway.
In his book entitled, The Singing Thing, John Bell asks the question, “Why do we sing?” Then, he discusses the following possibilities in narrative form: To Tell Stories, To Exercise our Creativity, To Revisit the Past, To Express Emotion, To Create Identity, To Give of Ourselves, To Shape the Future.
Therefore, how we go about selecting hymns for worship really matters! In addition, how we engage in the singing of hymns is important to how we worship. The next time you reach for your hymnal in worship, we hope you will choose to sing robustly or at least read the text. If it’s not your favorite hymn tune, focus more on the text and melody. Most importantly, make the effort to actively participate in the worship of God through engaging your heart, mind, and voice in the gift of music.
“Music is a fair and glorious gift from God.” Martin Luther
“He who sings prays twice.” St. Augustine