Restoring passion . . . revealing the hymnal
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?
Every ministry of the MBC Executive Board is to have a 2008 positioning statement beginning with ‘Restoring Passion,’ then we fill it in with a ministry concept unique to our discipline, and it must begin with the letter “r” and be sort of kind of iambic in its cadence. This was actually pretty easy for us and I’m excited to announce it to you.
It has been 17 years since the last Baptist Hymnal came out, and with the advent of lyric projection it has made many wonder if we would see a new one. So, permit me to introduce the Baptist Hymnal 2008.
With the help of our friends at LifeWay allow me to describe it for you:
• More than 670 theologically sound hymns and worship songs in the pew editions
• An extended collection of more than 250 additional worship songs and contemporary arrangements of hymns in the accompaniment editions and online at LifeWayWorship.com
• WorshipChart PDF CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs for instrumental parts
• WorshipTrack split track AAC CDs (compressed audio format similar to MP3) and split track CDs
• WorshipMedia DVDs and DVD-ROMs with PowerPoint® presentations, accompaniment videos, and background videos
The hymnal/website comes under the far-reaching umbrella of the LifeWay Worship Project and it features the work of hundreds to make pew-bound hymnal and a web-bound hymnal with “no back page.”
This year your MBC Worship Staff is 110 percent behind educating, and equipping our churches with as much information and insight as possible about the Baptist Hymnal, and LifeWayworship.com. We will be a certified instruction site for use of the website, and we are having half-a-dozen consultants trained this summer to do other training sessions throughout the state in this new and exciting endeavor.
• Listen to the latest MoWorship podcast at www.mobaptist.org/worship (January podcast) to hear an interview with the sales director, Patrick Watts, of the LifeWay Worship Project.
• Sign up at www.lifewayworship.com and register – to stay in the loop.
• Download the Excel spreadsheet at the LifeWay Worship site which will give you a projection of cost for your budget.
• The preorder date for this is Feb. 15 and the hymnal release date is Aug. 8, 2008 – 080808.
Again, I can’t emphasize enough the fact that we are completely behind LifeWay in this new work. But the reason for this is we want so very much for you to plan well for your church’s future in worship. I truly believe that this will be revolutionary. (John Francis is the Worship Specialist for the Missouri Baptist Convention and produces MoWorship, a monthly worship podcast available at www.mobaptist.org/worship.)