Speaking of Hymns

This is such a good idea that it makes me with I’d thought of it.

Sherry of Semicolon is doing a hymn project she’s calling The Top 100 Hymns Poll. Here’s how it works:

1. Make a list of your top ten hymns of all time. Hymn (according to Webster): a song of praise to God a metrical composition adapted for singing in a religious service. For the purposes of this poll, I’m limiting the choices to Christian hymns, but the form of the song doesn’t matter. In other words, the songs on your list should be suitable for congregational singing and should be Christian. Handel’s Messiah is Christian but probably not suitable for congregational hymn singing. Anything you sing in worship service, even what are normally called choruses, is fine. (Oh, English, please, or at least translated into English. Sorry, but it’s all I really speak.)

2.List these hymns in your order of preference. So your #1 hymn would be the one you feel is the best, and so on. I will be giving your first choice 10 points, your second choice 9 points, and so on.

3. Submit your list to me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom. Write “Hymn Survey” in the subject line. I’d rather you didn’t leave your votes in my comments here because it’ll be easier to tabulate all the votes if they’re all in my email (plus I want everyone’s votes to be a surprise). Deadline for votes to be sent to me is May 31, 2009.

4. If you like, you can submit a justification for each hymn. Or you can send me a link to an audio or video version online. Include the name of the hymn’s author or lyricist and the composer of the melody you prefer if at all possible, especially if you think I might be unfamiliar with your particular hymn.

Sherry says she will  tally everything and

pull from the submitted pieces why one reader or another liked a particular hymn (naming the reader, of course). That way we’ll be able to hear from a whole bunch of people why they love one hymn or another. I will then count down from 100 to 1 over the course of the summer the top choices of what folks feel the best hymns of all time are.

I know a lot of you readers are hymn fans and I hope you’ll take the time to participate in Sherry’s poll. If you have a blog, I hope you’ll grab the details from Sherry’s post and publicize her hymn project on your blog, too. Let’s help her reach her goal of at least 100 lists of top 10 hymns.

And while you’re at it, why not publish your list of top ten hymns on your blog? Because I really do want to see it, you know.

Sunday's Hymn

This hymn by Fanny Crosby is a paraphrase of the Apostles’ Creed.

I Believe in God the Father

I believe in God the Father,
Who created Heav’n and earth;
Made the stars to shine so brightly,
Gave each living thing its birth.
I believe in God the Father,
And in Jesus Christ His Son,
Who was crucified on Calv’ry
For the sins that all have done.

I believe He died, was buried,
Rose again, no more to die;
And ascending to His Father,
Took His seat with Him on high.
I believe in God the Spirit,
Sent to us from Heav’n above,
And the Church our blessèd Savior
Hath redeemed by His great love.

I believe in His forgiveness,
And His wondrous power to save;
In a glorious resurrection,
And a life beyond the grave.
I believe in God the Father,
I believe in God the Son,
And in God the Holy Spirit,
Everlasting Three in One.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Lord’s Day 20, 2009 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Send the Light at The Happy Wonderer
• The Fifth Sunday After Easter at Nova Scotia Scott
• Though Troubles Assail Us at Hiraeth
• A Mighty Fortress at Fieldstone Cottage
• Give Me a New, a Perfect Heart at joythruChrist
• O Jesus, Crowned With All Reknown at Conjubilant With Song
• In the Hour of Trial at Whatever Things….
• O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus at Tapestry of Graces
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Against Eloquence

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Saturday's Old Photo

When my oldest son got rid of his SmugMug account, I lost some of the photos in the Saturday’s Old Photo posts in my old Blogger blog. Since the primary reason I’m doing these posts is so that my children will have a record of the details of the photos and the family stories associated with them, I don’t want to let the posts go photoless forever. So I’ve decided that on Saturdays when I’m really busy (like today), I’m going to repost an old old photo post and upload the photo that goes with it again. I’ll be rebuilding my old photo post collection and keeping this blog alive on busy Saturdays. They don’t call me the queen of efficiency for nothing!

This post was originally posted in March of 2007.

It’s cold out, so this picture seemed appropriate for today’s old photo. My sister and I are showing off our brand new parkas in this family picture. We’d just moved to Minnesota that fall, and the coats we’d used back in Illinois weren’t appropriate for the colder northern winters, so we’d gone with my mother to J. C. Penney’s to buy us each a parka.

These are what we picked out. If I were writing this unprompted by my mother’s notes on the back of the photo, I’d tell you that the coats were a lovely shade of blue, and then I’d pat myself on the back for my accurate, detailed memory of my childhood. However, my mother’s notes say they were red, and you can trust her on that. That is, I guess, a little warning to us all that while I’m always certain that what I write in these little pieces is factual, I can get my facts wrong.

I remember loving the fuzzy feel of these parkas. I wore mine for a couple of years before I outgrew it, and then my poor sister got my hand-me-down, so she wore the same parka, just different sizes, for four years.

When we moved to Minnesota, we lived in the parsonage at Northern Bible Chapel. The pastor of the church owned his own home, so my dad and mom cleaned the church in exchange for a deal on renting the parsonage. On our first Christmas there, which would have come a month or so after this picture was taken, Mr. Klein, an elderly man from the church who didn’t get out much because he couldn’t leave his sick wife for long, knocked on the door and delivered a package for each of us girls. He’d bought us little white zippered Bibles—the very first Bibles we owned.