Photo Courtesy: Church Newsroom
SALT LAKE CITY — The committees in charge of a new hymnbook and children’s songbook for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have 17,000 submissions to go over as well as 45,000 suggestions for songs to keep or remove from the current hymnal.
This comes at the conclusion of a one year period during which the church’s First Presidency asked for suggestions before creating two new uniform hymnals to be used in worship services across the world.
“We recognize the power that sacred music has to unify the members of the Church throughout the world,” Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the faith’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said in a release.
“We desire to offer a consistent core collection of hymns and songs in every language that reflects the diverse needs of the global Church in our day,” he continued.
The two committees in charge of the update expect there to be years of work ahead of them. They were expecting 10,000 song submissions and got many more, says the Deseret News.
New song submissions came from 60 countries from those hoping to add to the work. One Tooele man sent in 150 songs that he wrote or collaborated on.
The deadline for submissions was July 1st and now the two committees will sort through all that music to see what should go into the new hymnbook and children’s songbook. They are also training people to translate the music into multiple languages for the worldwide church.
The goal of this update according to the church will allow all the members from around the world to sing the same hymns arranged in the same way in all languages.
The criteria from the church’s First Presidency said new hymns and songs need to increase faith in and worship of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, teach core doctrine, invite joyful singing, comfort the weary and inspire people to endure in faith and unify Latter-day Saints and others around the world.