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Glory to God, the new Presbyterian hymnal, will be published in the fall of 2013. For the past four years, I have had the privilege of serving on the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song (PCOCS). During this time we reviewed over 10,000 hymns and songs before narrowing this group to about 850 which will appear in the new hymnal. As we deliberated over what hymns and songs should be contained in the new hymnal, we considered many things. We wanted to preserve many of the hymns which have proven to be the foundation of hymnody from previous centuries. We wanted to keep many of the hymns which have become "heartfelt hymns," often referred to as the "old chestnuts" of the church. We wanted to acknowledge hymns and songs from different cultures around the world. We wanted to have hymns from different denominations. We wanted to have songs from the contemporary genre. We wanted to include newlycomposed hymns. The final result of this would be a worship resource that would offer a variety of styles and instill a lot of variety into people's worship. All of this is aimed at bringing glory to God.
In the next few editions of The...