My top 10 wedding hymns - part 2

So, to continue the countdown, here are some more picks for the weddings of 2011 or 2012!

As I said yesterday, vicars and organists cringe at the choices we are asked to perform, yet of all the wealth of Christian music that's on offer, very little of it is really accessible to modern British couples planning their wedding day.

7. Shine Jesus shine

No, hear me out. I am a Graham Kendrick fan – I think many of his songs are thoughtful and memorable. I don't personally rate this one particularly highly, but it's well known, and that's the key. Musically, I call it a “cut and shut” because it seems like two different bits of music have been welded together, not very successfully. The chorus needs to be sung fast, or it sounds like a dirge, but gabbling the complicated words in the verses makes you want to slow it down and sing it in a more measured way. If led by guitar and drums, something with rhythm, then you can sing it slowly, and it works quite well. But play it on the organ, and it's just awful. So why is it in my top 10?

People like it. There's no accounting for taste.

6. One more step along the world I go

Sydney Carter has the gift of being profound and simple. “You are older than the world can be, you are younger than the life in me.” You don't get more profound than that. Optimism, hope for the future, something to ponder, all wrapped up in a bouncy tune that gets your foot tapping.

5. Praise my soul the king of heaven

Of all the standard, traditional hymns, this might be the best to go for. The tune isn't too hard to pick up – the repeated “Praise him, praise him” helps - and it follows the thread of Psalm 103 closely. Some people object to the theology of verse 4: “Angels help us to adore him” and there is an alternative “Angels in the height adore him.” I can't see what the fuss is about myself.

4. Be still for the presence of the Lord is here

One of the things I try and do at the start of a service like a wedding is say something like “Let's pause for a second in silence and remember that God is here with us.” This song does the same task - reminding us that this marriage is done with the Almighty as a witness. The Biblical allusions (holy ground) are well known enough for all but the most distant outsiders to church to appreciate, and the idea of holiness is one that is worth exploring in the context of marriage.

Oh, and the tune's easy to sing, and hard to play badly!  

My top 10 wedding hymns - part 1

For something a little different – here's a vicar's blog post about what he'd like to sing at a wedding.

At www.yourchurchwedding.org, the Church of England has done an excellent job in producing an outward-facing website for couples planning their church weddings. A real example to us in the church about how to do something that is based on real listening to people outside the church, rather than just playing to the internal issues that we find so fascinating.

One of their little features is a wedding hymns chooser. Some of my colleagues groan at this, and many of the organists I know do a lot more than groan, resigning themselves to more renditions of All things Bright and Beautiful and Morning has Broken.

Yes I know it's boring for us, to have to sing the same trite things over and over again, when there is a wealth of good music out there, but the reality is that no one outside the church knows about it.

Apart from football matches, people just don't sing in public any more. So it's no good expecting them to be comfortable trying to mumble their way through anything more challenging than Give me oil in my lamp, or Jerusalem if you're lucky. (Well, musically it's good, even if you don't think the words are Christian)

So what are we going to do about it? I reckon we should seek out a few good hymns that people might know, are easy to sing, make you feel good when you sing them, and convey something of the Christian message as well.

Are there any? That's a good question. Here's my suggestions.

10. Great is thy faithfulness

This has the virtue of a having a chorus, which means the tune is easier to learn. It's a hymn about God, not about us, and that's good too. The downsides for me are the words of the verses, where the meaning is obscured by the old fashioned language, and the tune, which is a bit dreary. But the chorus is strong, with a simple idea and a strong rhythm, and at the end of the day, that's what makes it memorable.

9. Jerusalem

Well, what can I say? It's got nothing to do with weddings, nothing to do with Christianity particularly. What it does have going for it is evoking the most wonderful feeling. What church can offer, that nothing else in my experience can, is the ability to celebrate in solemnity. Have you ever read a funny book in a library? The fact that you can't laugh out loud makes the jokes even funnier. The fact that you're singing celebratory things, but with that control and solemnity just intensifies the feeling. And the music does it too – the climax comes in the penultimate line, and then it finishes each verse with a slightly lower intensity, all combines to heighten the feelings.

Do it – people will feel right when they're singing it, even if they're not thinking what you might want them to think.

8. Make me a channel of your peace

St Francis' famous words are timeless, and this gentle tune sets them off perfectly. It's not the easiest to pick up if you don't know it, and it's one of those tunes that doesn't know how to finish. But there's some sentiments in there that are very appropriate for a wedding.

The rest of the top 10 will follow in the next couple of days.

What do you think? Anything I should include?