Hymn Recording Project

Even though I grew up in Baptist churches, there are a lot of songs in the hymnal that I’ve never heard sung anywhere. I am excited about a new project we are working on since it has forced me to go through and examine every single song in the hymnal. Our church is in the process of recording each and every song, with the exception of a few I am leaving out that are doctrinally questionable. That still leaves over 400 songs that we plan to record.

We typically only sing about 250 songs here at Faithful Word Baptist Church, so we are learning over 150 new songs! The hymnal we use is called Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns, which is a great hymnal that I grew up with. You can order it from Sword of the Lord Publishers, or you can pick one up for free here at FWBC in Tempe, Arizona.

The plan is to record all the songs, put them on YouTube, and then put them onto CDs. Each disc will have approximately 25 songs on it, so there will be a total of 16 or 17 discs. Each disc will have a theme. For example, the theme of the first disc we released is "The Cross," the second is "The Resurrection," the third is "The Second Coming," and the fourth is "Comfort and Encouragement." Hopefully, we’ll be coming out with a new CD every month. We tried recording the songs during church, but the acoustics aren’t that great, so about 13-15 of us have been squeezing into a recording studio to record congregational-style singing.

There are a lot of old songs that have been forgotten since churches often end up singing only a few hymns and/or branching out into contemporary-styled music. We want to resurrect the forgotten old hymns of the faith. Not only that, but we want to help people get used to singing hymns in general, so they can sing them throughout the day as well as in church. I'm a big fan of singing as opposed to just listening to music, so don't forget to get a hymnal as the companion guide to the CD's.

Once we’ve recorded all of the CDs, that should add up to about 17 hours of congregational hymns, which we will be putting onto one flash drive. The CDs and flash drive will of course be available for free here at Faithful Word Baptist Church.

We never sell anything in the house of God, but there is a private business that sells these items online. A friend of mine, Paul Wittenberger, sells these items in his online store at Framingtheworld.com, which is a great resource for people who are unable to visit our church.

There is already a playlist on our YouTube channel where we have uploaded about 60 of the songs so far, so you can start listening to them right away.

“Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.” Psalm 71:8

Here is the recording of a new song that I learned by doing this project, "Will Jesus Find Us Watching?"