Weekly briefing on hymns to be sung in the Sunday worship - a breakthrough in hymnody

2020/4/28 9:25
This  is to mark a new step in history as a positive effect of the COVID-19.
This also marks a witness of a new PHD at work. Dr. Yu Hao went through the oral defense on April 17, 2020 and received his doctorate as a PHD in education.

Having served as the founding director of the Research & Development of the Gardeners of Hope Foundation, I have been very sensitive to the contribution from all hands to the new ways and new lives.
-----
Here is my response to a LINE message from Dr. Hosea Yu Hao this morning at 9:04

"I see. I was not thinking about a lecture but a demonstration of pronunciation and singing.

I can try to record a brief talk around the hymn to help the people get into it before trying to sing. The traditional hymn-singing during the worship services is not enough to help anybody really appreciate or get help from the hymn and the singing.

The good part of this briefing is that all languages can be covered at the same time through captions.

This is a good thinking and a big breakthrough in the history of hymnody. Thank you. I will start writing a blog to interpret and explain this new methods citing the source of innovation as Dr. Yu Hao, the newest PHD in Education."

This is how the conversation started:

-----

Here is the first thoughts of the framework:

1. Every hymn, new or old,  deserves interpretation, demonstration, and drills to reach the heart and the soul of the potential singers and listeners.
2. Every potential users of hymns, singing or not, believing or not, Christian or not, church member or not, deserve the interpretation, demonstration, and drills to be benefited from the rich heritage of hymns and singing of Christians.
3. The general public deserves the inspiration from the combination of the spiritual factors, musical factors, psychological factors, social factors, drill factors, and the literal factors to maximize the benefit of every hymn continuously.
4. The hymn-users deserve the opportunity to be inspired and learn the art and the skills of hymn-briefing as a way to advance the ability of spreading the gospel through hymns.
5. Every congregation has the opportunity and the responsibility of maximizing the utilization and the benefit of hymn-usage.
6. The hymn-briefing could be in many forms and styles, including writing, lecturing, video-making/sharing, pre-singing hints, etc. without limitation except the principles of  "refraining from overshadowing the core of worship services"
7. For a hymn-briefing immediately before the start of a worship service, whether replacing the conventional prelude or not, the main theme could be on the special reason for selecting the hymn and the verses for the given worship service, the key words in the lyrics, the theological factors of the lyrics, the music motive and the highlights of the song, the pronunciation of selected syllables, the challenging notes and ranges in the melody, the difficult passages, the challenges to the instrumentalists, the risk of straying away from worship, etc. This list would be adjusted continuously.
8. Ideally, an editorial board would be nice to have if the briefing is right before a worship service or considered as a part of the worship service. (If "interpreting the Words" is part of the worship "interpreting the singing" could also be considered a component, too.) This means the videos need to be made in advance for enough time to review and approve.
9. Captions in multiple langues on the video would be nice to have for a congregation consisting of people with various lingual preferences. Without the immediate pressure of a multi-cultural congregation the video could be made in different spoken language or captions.
10. The video of hymn briefing could be utilized perpetually to help people across boundaries of space, culture, and time, as commanded by Jesus, (Mark 16:15, "He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation'"; Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”", New International Version).

10:25 2020/4/28