A Folk Hymnal Songbook is in the process of being made. Here’s the preface from the songbook.
“Fine music without devotion is but a splendid garment upon a corpse.” Charles Spurgeon surely knew how to turn a phrase!
When I began songwriting a few years ago, I did it as a way to sharpen my devotional life but also as a way to spend my creative energy. As I began exploring songwriting, I found myself writing music that I wanted to share but struggling to know how. Quite frankly, I don’t have the requisite skill set to be a recording artist or a worship leader. With that in mind, I began exploring creative ways to release my music out into the world. I started to ask myself, ‘What if I had my artist friends, who are far more talented than me, help bring these songs to life?’ The result was the creation of Folk Hymnal—a guild of church worship leaders creating theologically rich songs in an accessible and attractive way. The name Folk Hymnal is descriptive. Folk because this is music that is authentic—born out of relationship and community. Hymnal because our aim is to create deep, congregationally-singable music.
It would then make sense that a guild calling themselves Folk Hymnal would then actually create a Folk Hymnal. What follows in these pages is sheet music of most of our songs over these past two years. These songs were written to be sung together and so I hope you enjoy doing just that. Know as you sing that these songs are the modest culmination of about a dozen songwriters. Each songwriter has been influenced by life in their own congregation and has done their best to communicate biblical truth in their own voice and style. Thus, what you are holding in your hands is the distilled affective responses of hundreds, if not thousands, of believers. I hope you are humbled, as I am, by the kingdom heritage that is contained in these pages.
Charles Spurgeon opened this preface so it seems fitting that he closes it as well: “My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.”
Here’s hoping our fate is better than Spurgeon’s grandfather! And here’s to many more years of aspiring to make “fine music with devotion.”
-Tim Briggs, founder of Folk Hymnal