V. A STUDY OF METHODS OF USE
But it is not enough to gather the materials and study the individual hymns. A magazine of blasting powder has immense possibilities of power; but unless methods are invented for applying that power to desired ends, it is a liability and not an asset. Having learned all about hymns, the next study is how efficiently to use them, to organize the best methods of exploiting the social, mental, and spiritual values their singing offers.
Using Hymns in Sermons.
Few ministers utilize the possibilities of apt Scripture quotations in their sermons; fewer still know how to draw on the treasures found in their hymnals to increase interest and intensify emotion. In many cases the very finest climax to a section of a sermon, or to the sermon itself, will be found in one or more verses of a hymn which brings the emotion of the theme to its high culmination. There is no lack of material; for the expression of every Christian doctrine that lends itself to lyric feeling there are intense and poignant phrases and lines steeped in transcendent emotion. Abstract truth has intellectual value of course, but has spiritual value only when transmuted into the gold of intense conviction in the heart of true believers. It is the genuine hymn that raises the temperature to the transmuting point, if properly introduced and emotionally used.
Studying Responsiveness of the Congregation.
The intelligent preacher will study his congregation and its capacities of song to determine what he can do. He will canvass their responsiveness to certain classes of hymns, solemn, cheerful, aggressive, meditative, emotional, didactic—literary, popular. Their taste in the tunes to be used will need to be carefully considered. It would be folly to announce “When the Roll is Called up Yonder” in a congregation used to singing and enjoying Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott”; equally so to ask a congregation that enjoys singing “There’s sunshine in my soul” to sing Iron’s version of the “Dies Irae.”
A survey must needs be made of the musical resources and of the adaptability of musical helpers. In some cases such adaptability needs to be trained and developed. Their pliancy in rapidly taking up new methods, and executing unexpected plans of the preacher quickly, will require training.
Studying Methods of Announcement and Securing Participation.
An important study will be how to announce and introduce the hymns in such a way as to awaken the interest and to win the sympathetic attention of the members of the congregation, and also how to help the people to sing with their minds and hearts, as well as with their vocal cords.
The methods to be used in securing full participation in the singing, without losing sight of the deeper meaning of the hymn, will need to be formulated or borrowed from successful leaders of song. The problem is not met by merely urgent demands that everybody sing; they must all be moved upon to want to sing. Can it be done by illustrations, by moving anecdotes, by tender appeals bearing on the thought and feeling of the hymn in hand? The kind of anecdotes and how they are to be used, before or during any given hymn, will call for careful discrimination. How shall the preacher acquire the power of introducing a hymn in a very few well-chosen words, vibrant with the feeling the hymn expresses, striking the spiritual key connecting up the hymn with the religious purpose of the whole service? Year after year, by observation of other ministers and song leaders, by his reading, by experiments of his own, he will acquire a body of efficient methods with which to vitalize his song service.
Studying Use of Hymnal for Specific Purposes.
This will include methods of using hymns for specific purposes. Is his congregation indifferent with regard to some particular line of work that he wishes to present—missions, for instance: what hymns, and methods of using them, will stimulate their minds and prepossess them for this as yet unappealing topic? Are they careless or irreverent in mood as they gather: can he sober their minds and awe their souls with a consciousness of God’s actual presence with a solemn hymn and its impressive tune? How shall he use the singing of the hymns to affect and win the unsaved whom he plans to invite to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Master? In a thousand ways the intelligent and adroit minister can make his hymns count largely in accomplishing his beneficent purposes.