Notes on the Hymnal
"Let all be for edification. ... Sing with the spirit, and sing with the mind also."
Paul of Tarsus, 1st Corinthians 14:15. (The hymns of "the Charismatic Movement" tend to wallow in reverence and neglect creed.)
A hymn is a song expressing belief in a creed and reverence for what that creed regards as transcendent.
Our hymns express our creed and our reverence "to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb".
Our hymns have been chosen for:
the clarity with which the words express our creed,
the beauty of those words, and
the beauty of an associated tune.
We follow the following conventions.
We sometimes combine pairs of lines into single lines (so that a whole hymn can be onscreen).
We sometimes add punctuation (to highlight the sense).
We omit accents. (For instance, "beloved" has three syllables; if it sounds like "belov'd" we show it as "belov'd".
We drop initial capitals, except in names. (For instance, "We trust our god, God".)
Parenthesised words at the start of a line precede the first beat.
A row of dots at the end of a line indicates repetition of a refrain given in full at its first occurrence.
Words in square brackets (usually a refrain-recurrence) can be omitted without damaging the coherence of the whole.