The Anglican Church in North America’s Music Task Force has now released music resources to accompany the Psalms for the upcoming seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. It has also released today a Hymns and Spiritual Songs Worship Planner for the Advent season. These resources have been launched on the Task Force’s new website.For a comparatively small denomination with limited resources, the 1.0 version of the website is surprisingly polished and complete. The current site lists 11 pages behind the home page:
The Music Task Force was commissioned out of the Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force, the group responsible for the Book of Common Prayer 2019. Now, the attention turns to the musicality of the Anglican tradition.
- Home
- Music Leadership Philosophy
- Hymns and Spiritual Songs
- Psalter
- Service Music
- Altar Book
- Choirs
- Handbells
- Keyboards
- Praise Teams and Folk Groups
- Web Resources
- Pastor and Church Musician Relationship
Despite the predominance of praise music in the ACNA — particularly in its largest parishes — the site is relatively balanced in the worship wars. For example, #3 lists quotes from Jaroslav Pelikan and Keith/Kristyn Getty. The former states:
Tradition is a good thing. It is traditionalism that is bad. Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.
The worship planner on the same page includes references to hymns from Hymnal 1982 and Book of Common Praise 2017 (listed as the “2019” hymnal) as well as praise songs. For example, Advent 4 (Year A) lists these hymns
| Hymns | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title | Tune | Hymnal 1982/REC 2019 Hymnal |
| Savior of the Nations, Come | Nun komm | #54/#10 |
| Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus | Stuttgart | #66/#1 |
| Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming | Es ist ein rose | #81/#32 |
| Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence | Picardy | #324/#263 |
| Lift Up Your Heads | Truro | #436/#390 |
| O Come, O Come, Emmanuel | Veni Emmanuel | #56/#7 |
| People, Look East | Besancon | Internet/#12 |
| Spiritual Songs/Communion Songs | ||
| Title | Tune | Hymnal 1982/REC 2019 Hymnal |
| Comfort, comfort ye my people (works well with instrumental ensemble) | Psalm 42 | #67/#20 |
| All Beautiful the March of Days(works well with instrumental ensemble) | Forest Green | Internet |
| Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence(works well with instrumental ensemble) | Picardy | #324/#263 |
| The King of Glory (Israeli Folk Song) | Betty Pulkingham | Internet |
| Lift Up Your Heads | Steven Fry | Internet |
| Emmanuel | Jeff Buchan | Internet |
| Awake, O Israel (Israeli Folk Song) | Merla Watson | Internet |
| Exodus XV | Frank Gallio | Internet |
| Waiting in Silence | Carey Landry | Internet |
Task Force and Members
The task force consists of Mark Williams (Parish Musician, Christ Church Anglican, Savannah, Georgia), Rev. Darrell Critch (rector of Church of the Good Samaritan in St. John’s, Newfoundland) and Jeremy Redmond (Music Associate at St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in Tallahassee, Florida) While Williams “was chosen to chair the ACNA Music Task Force by Archbishop Robert Duncan” — i.e. more than five years ago — the website suggests the task force is relatively nascent: three is a relatively small task force, and there’s no discussion of the task force processes, meetings, or contact information.
Similarly, the “Musicians of the Anglican Church in North America (MACNA)” seems like the ACNA response to the “Association of Anglican Musicians,” which publishes a journal 10x/year for church musicians in The Episcopal Church. However, there no additional information about the MACNA, or a way for musicians to join this organization.
Advice for Effective Congregational Singing
While much of the material is specific to the ACNA — e.g. the chants and forthcoming altar book are modeled on the BCP 1979 and Hymnal 1982 — some aspects are of more general interest. Several articles offer advice on introducing a new hymn (or “song”) — helpful for any music director who has not thought out the right vs. wrong way to do so.
The interview with Williams makes some good points that would be relevant (in my research) to the music director of any liturgical church
To me then, what is important is that the choice of music has these quality traits: that it is singable by the congregation and was composed with this in mind (it is not a soloistic piece of music). That the melody of the song is well-crafted and that there is a good marriage between the melody and the text. That the music, as much as possible, is in a key that the congregation can sing (no notes below the A below middle C and no notes above high D or E). That the music carries some level of high intrinsic value; that it has stood the test of time, however long. And that the choice of music fits the liturgical year or the theme for the day for worship.
Similarly, “3 Errors of Musical Style that Stifle Community,” an article by Canadian Baptist pastor Tim Challies, should be must reading by leaders on any side of the worship wars. Based on the book The Compelling Community, Challies explains those three errors are
- Music that’s difficult to sing corporately, particularly rhythmic complexity.
- Music with limited emotional breadth. “Much of church music is happy music. But if that is all we ever have, we substantially dilute the Christian experience. And the tone we set in our services will inevitably carry over into relationships.”
- Music that feels like a performance. “Musical accompaniment can help by leading us in song and helping us through sections of songs that are more difficult to sing. Or it can overpower congregational worship and turn us from active worshipers into passive listeners.”
A liturgy committee, membership association and newsletter are what the ACNA (and Continuing Anglicans before them) church musicians left behind in TEC. It is good to see the first step (at a realistic scale) towards knowledge sharing and professionalism among North American Anglicans.
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