The Christian Reformed Church of North American and Lift Up Your Hearts
This page outlines the process that will be followed to work towards the endorsement of Lift Up Your Hearts for use within the Christian Reformed Church of North America. The following was approved by the Board of Trustees at their meeting on October 1, 2011."
As an editorial committee we seek and value the wisdom and guidance of the CRC synod as well as other theologians and worship leaders from both the CRC and RCA. To that end we invite classes and synod to review the work of the committee and dialogue with us regarding any questions and concerns that arise.
To facilitate that process we propose the following:
- Use of the website liftupyourheartshymnal.org
—current list of songs under consideration is already posted
—links will be created to other sites where the text/music of songs will appear
—public domain texts will be posted as we suggest they appear in LUYH
—suggested tune for each metrical hymn will be listed for review
- A sampler with the song list, outline of hymnal, and a few songs be created to send out to churches for their consideration, as well as information on how to engage in the review process. This would be available by October 15, 2011.
- Faith Alive Board approval of the provisional list of songs at their September board meeting.
- Theologians from our seminaries and colleges be chosen to review the text of all the songs. These can be appointed either by the board of Faith Alive or the committee itself. This review to be complete by February 1, 2012.
- Any individual or classis desiring to review the texts of all 800+ songs may request a hard copy of those song texts from Faith Alive Christian Resources with the promise of using it for review only and destroying it by July 2012 for copyright issues. The first section will be available October 1, 2011, the second by November 15, 2011, and the final section by January 15, 2012.
- All comments, concerns, questions be directed to the editorial committee by April 1, 2012 to allow them time to address them before synod and the final approval of the Faith Alive board at their April meeting. This can be either done via email sent to hymnal@crcna.org, by phone 1-616-224-0763, or by mail:
Hymnal Editor
Faith Alive Christian Resources
2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49560
- Synod 2012 consider endorsing Lift Up Your Hearts as an entire unit. By endorsing we understand synod to be saying that synod is sufficiently confident in the quality of this new songbook and its biblical and Reformed soundness to welcome its appearance and commend it to the churches for their acquisition and use.
