Some churches in the 1980’s and 1990’s continued to sing only hymns while some churches blended together the singing of hymns, praise choruses, and contemporary praise & worship songs. In reality, hymns were never totally abandoned. It was even suggested in some locations that your church would not grow if you did not replace hymn singing with these new worship songs. Unfortunately, in many places of worship, our rich treasury of traditional hymns and gospel hymns were abandoned for the new praise choruses and contemporary worship music. This change continued into the 1990’s with popular contemporary praise & worship songs such as “Shout to the Lord” (1994). In the 1980’s the praise & worship movement got its start with familiar worship songs such as “Majesty” (1981), “How Majestic Is Your Name” (1981), and culminated in 1989 with “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.” These new praise & worship songs were also a refreshing musical change that helped us re-focus our attention on the importance of worship. Accompanied by acoustic guitars these simple praise choruses were often based upon scripture and were easy to learn. In a good way praise choruses such as “Seek Ye First” (1972), “Jesus, Name Above All Names” (1974), “Glorify Thy Name” (1976), and “In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified” (1978) ushered in a refreshing musical change for the youth and young adults that were becoming Christians. This trend was both good and unfortunate. Yes, during the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a growing trend in worship music to “abandon” and “cast off” the use of traditional hymns and replace them with praise choruses and the emerging contemporary praise & worship songs. Are these praise choruses merely a passing fad, or are some of them destined to become a part of our hymnic repertoire? Growing numbers of our congregations are abandoning the hymnal and singing only praise choruses others use a combination of both. In thinking about the word “abandoned” in relation to our Christian hymns I wrote these words back in 1988: A second article will examine the second definition of “abandoned” as it relates to the Old Testament story of King David found in 2 Samuel, chapter 6. This article will examine the first definition of “abandoned” as it relates to hymns, praise choruses, and contemporary praise & worship music. ![]()
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