Worship leaders have been trying to contemporize hymns for a long time. The most notable album that I've been exposed to was Passion's "Hymns Ancient and Modern" released back in 2004. And for the most part, this album is a great example of the conventional approach to using hymns in today's church - trying to shoehorn current instrumentation onto centuries-old music, with a sprinkling of additional choruses. More recently, I've noticed attempts to actually write new songs in the style of hymns from bands like Sojourn.
First, let me explain why hymns are so important.
In my mind, the last album that made a significant, lasting impact on worship music was Hillsong United's "To the Ends of the Earth" album from 2003. This was the first album, at least to me, that showed that worship music could be culturally relevant. (A lot of the songs on this album would have fit right in on a radio station's playlist.) Some may be offended by the album's punk/rock stylistic leanings, but bear in mind, this was a bunch of youth/young adults writing songs for their peers, and I was in high school at the time, and just learning how to play the guitar. But this album was also the turning point for Hillsong (and for worship music as a whole) - from this point on, Hillsong honed their style, developing the "wall of guitars" sound so easily identifiable with not just that church but countless other worship albums since then.
"To the Ends of the Earth" was, in some ways, overly successful. In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for worship leaders to sort through the sheer mass of hundreds and hundreds of worship songs, straining to listen through the walls of guitars to pick out lyrics that could minister to their congregations. Don't get me wrong - there has been some tremendous songwriting, and a lot of wonderful worship music has been generated over the past decade that allowed congregations to connect emotionally in a very powerful way with the music that was coming off the stage. But in some ways, we forgot a lot of the heritage that the church has - hymns so full of theological content that some could be presented as messages in and of themselves. And as brave as artists like Passion and Sojourn are for their valiant attempts to make hymns relevant again, I feel like none have been so successful as Brad Hooks. Time will tell how well songs from "Hymnastics" will be received by congregations - I feel like, in some ways, it is before its time. And I know that there are people who love the old hymns, who love opening up the great hymnals to whatever page and singing along with the organist. But I do know this: "Hymnastics" takes all the theological content of our hymn-writing history and makes it accessible to the new generations of believers, those who have been raised on Pop and Rock and listening to hits on the radio. Hymns are now - dare I say it - cool.
