The hymnal I have been working on for two years is finished! It contains 88 hymns, each one of them a winner. 47 are taken directly from the Psalms. Many of the rest are directly based on other scriptures, and about 30 of them are based on New Testament scriptures or teachings. It is a very "Church of God" oriented, forward-looking collection. Many of the hymns are about Christ returning to establish his kingdom, and other parts of what we know as the plan of God, including His Sabbath and keeping His commandments.

Some melodies are by the old masters—Mozart, Haydn, Tallis. Others are based on melodies from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Finland, Spain, China, Peru, Holland, Israel, the Ukraine, and Greece. There are two African-American spirituals, and one from the Kentucky Harmony collection. Many are ancient or from older psalters. Some, though still quite melodic and easy to sing, push the envelope of rhythmic structure. It is definitely a modern hymnal, yet it relies heavily on the beauty and majesty of old hymns. I think it stands on its own as a work with a distinctive flavor, and if one were to read the lyrics from beginning to end, it even preaches the gospel.

I wrote about a dozen of the hymns, and contributed to the lyrics or harmonies of a few more. My work is copyrighted, but available free for any non-profit use. There are so many advantages to having a royalty-free hymnal that I felt is was worth forfeiting the use of other beautiful hymns that are copyrighted. As a result, there are no Dwight Armstrong hymns, but I was able to find many old hymns which are just as good, often using exactly the same lyrics Mr. Armstrong did. This hymnal can be photocopied by anyone in its entirety or in part, or can be posted on a website for downloading. There are plans to produce a CD of MIDI files of all of the hymns, soon. (I will record them myself now that I know the final contents of the hymnal.) Also, because there are no royalties, the cost of the hymnals will be quite low.

In addition to the regular index, the hymns are grouped by meter as well. This means that the words of any hymn in a group may be sung to the tune of any other hymn in that group, producing literally hundreds of combinations of music and lyrics.

Jim Hopkins has done a great job of figuring out paper stock, binding style, and size. The finished hymnal will be roughly the size of the current UCG hymnal or the old WCG gray hymnal, but with a sewn and glued binding that is very durable (I think it’s called perfect binding). Christy Hooper of Cleveland designed a beautiful cover and title page. Jim is planning to print this hymnal as Servants’ News is going to press.

Up to this point, we have done everything for free. All the editing, typesetting, artwork and layout, and printing preliminaries have been donated by the people involved. Just for comparison, the WCG and UCG hymnals cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce.The major costs of printing and postage are too much for any one individual to bear. Thanks to many people who either loaned us money, or bought advanced copies, we were able to make the initial payment for printing. We intend to sell the hymnal at a price sufficient to recover our costs.

One hymnal, post-paid, will cost $6.00. We will send 2 through 20 hymnals for $5.00 each. (Ohio residents have the added privilege of paying 7% sales tax unless you furnish us with a tax exempt certificate.) For large orders, you can call or write me and I will figure out what additional discount I can give.

You may have the practical question: "How can I make such a decision without seeing the book?" You can see the smaller copies of the cover, above, and the first song, at right. A complete list of songs appears on the next page. A preview booklet showing the cover and 10 of the hymns is available upon request. Also, you can view or even hear some at Jim Ross’ excellent web page of church of God music:

http://www.cgmusic.com

For orders or information contact:

216-529-1380 magraham@bw.edu

(A missing page number means the previous song spans two pages).