April 9, 2008

An Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing

A hymn sing. Sounds like fun.

And well it should be, as both OWU Chaplain Jon Powers and Professor Blake Michael, Swan-Collins-Allan Professor of Religion agree. So did the 40-plus Ohio Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff members who attended the University’s first hymn sing last Wednesday during one of the weekly noon-time chapel services begun this year by the Chaplain’s office. A mainline Protestant service is scheduled for next week, and today’s (April 9) was a traditional Quaker service. But the hymn sing was a first.

“I have been walking around campus humming those tunes ever since [that service],” says Michael.

Singing nine songs from The Cokesbury Worship Hymnal, originally printed in 1923 and reissued in 1938, the group that gathered in the campus center’s third floor Peale Chapel, followed John Wesley’s singing directives. They sang lustily and with courage; modestly (above all, they did not bawl); in time; spiritually; and without altering (too terribly) the songs as written. For that was John Wesley’s way.

It is through hymn sings and his open and inclusive preaching that the unchurched people living during the 18th century in England came together and learned about Methodism. The OWU hymn sing relates well to both Michael’s and Powers’ earlier lives. Michael grew up in a working class southern church, with evangelical preaching and gospel singing, and OWU’s Chaplain remembers his church in northern Michigan, where the Cokesbury hymnal was used and Black gospel music was sung.

“I grew up next door to George Bernard, author of ‘The Old Rugged Cross,’ says Powers. “Hymns were a way of teaching theology.”

Methodism, as Michael explains, was built out of emotionalism.

“Hymns are all about intense personal relationships with God,” he says. “No-one really knows how to describe God, and this movement focused on relational and emotional analogues—personal rather than intellectual experiences.” And in this age of cellular phones and MP3s, a service such as last week’s hymn sing, says Michael, adds to our understanding of the world and of each other. Both Powers and Michael agree that it was a special experience.

“It is really worthwhile to share a variety of religious experiences,” says Powers. OWU’s Assistant Chaplain, Lisa Ho, thinks the hymn sing went exceptionally well.

With most of OWU’s students worshipping in churches having a contemporary style of worship, it was, as she says, “fun to watch their enthusiasm as they sang the old favorites.”

– Pam Besel