Lay Anglicana, the unofficial voice of the laity throughout the Anglican Communion.
This is the place to share news and views from the pews.

Get involved ...

Hymns and Hymnals

There are several useful websites with the texts, and sometimes the tunes, of various hymns.

In compiling your own copy of the service booklet (if you take our advice) it takes only a few moments to copy and paste the texts into your booklet.

However, do be careful. Modern hymnals have made occasionally Orwellian changes to the words of the hymns (the most famous being 'Onward Christian Pilgrims' instead of 'Onward Christian Soldiers'). This may involve political correctness (metaphorical talk of 'the church militant' makes some people nervous); changing pronouns to avoid sexism; shortening hymns to suit 21st century time frames; or sometimes the hymnal compiler simply seems to think he or she is better at hymnody than the original author.

You will therefore need to check the downloaded text against your church's version of the hymn to make sure you and the congregation are singing from the same hymn sheet...

Net Hymnal is jolly as the hymn tune automatically plays as you load the page. There is also hymnal.net, Hymns without words, and Hymns by Metre.

Hi-Fi Hymn Book has pipe recordings of well-known hymn tunes and is also available on youtube, as is a wide assortment of hymns from different sources.

Latest Blog Posts

Database Error

Error establishing a database connection