Voices Together (Hymnbook)

File:VoicesTogethercover and Title page.jpg

Voices Together cover (left) and title page (right)

Kaufman, Bradley, General Editor. Voices Together. Harrisonburg, Virginia. MennoMedia, 2020, (vi,1056) pages, hard cover, purple. ISBN: 978-1-5138-0553-5, Pew ed. USA$ 28.99.

Voices Together is the hymnbook authorised and published in 2020 by Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA for their churches. The hymn section has texts numbered 1 – 849. Of these 760 are hymns, most of these have four-part musical notation. Many hymns also include guitar chords. The other 89 texts are Bible passages or uncoloured illustrations interspaced with these hymns. These hymns are followed by a "Worship Resources" section with texts numbered 850-1069. This section continues the practice of earlier hymnbooks of providing resources for greater congregational participation in worship. In addition to the basic Pew Edition Voices Together was published in several other format editions: a Large Print Edition, an Accompaniment Edition, a Projection Edition, and an App Edition. In addition, a Voices Together – Worship Leaders Edition has been published to provide supplemental resources to accompany the hymns and guides to incorporate the hymns in worship. Many hymns have a small symbol on their bottom right corner directing leaders to extra resources in this edition. Finally, a Voices Together – Audio Recordings was released as a set of four volumes featuring choirs singing songs from the hymnbook. A shaped note edition was not published. This new hymnbook helps to reflect the increased diversity represented in North America’s Mennonite membership in 2020 by expanding the variety of musical styles and cultures represented in the hymns.

This hymnbook has been printed on thin Bible paper enabling it to remain fairly compact in spite of its huge number of pages. At the end of the book there are “Acknowledgement” pages, which lists the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee and its subcommittees members who worked editing and assembling this publication. Also named are a listing of financial doners followed by a variety of very useful indexes including a “Non-English Languages Index” which lists the hymns presented in 50 different non-English languages with Spanish the second most common language. Voices Together was readily accepted by most Mennonite congregation with 30,000 copies preordered.

Voices Together is a modernized and complex hymnbook and fits with a pattern of each new generation compiling its own hymnary. Three decades earlier, in 1992, North American Mennonite conferences published Hymnal: A Worship Book and the generation before that, in 1969, they published The Mennonite Hymnal. Voices Together updated the words in a number of older popular hymns which have been modified by using gender-inclusive language and modernizing archaic terminology. Some hymns contain both their original words supplemented with new updated words. The Committee laboured critically over several years to include hymns not only from diverse composers and writers but also hymns that represent the diversity of all of the people of God. Voices Together includes many new hymns from many different peoples of various races, languages and genders so that these hymns could become well known and loved.

See also Hymnology (1989)

Bibliography

Voices Together home page website: https://voicestogetherhymnal.org

Graber, Katie Graber and Anneli Loepp Thiessen. “Publishing Privileges the Published: An Analysis of Gender, Class, and Race in the Hymnological Feedback Loop.” Religions. Vol.14, no.10, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14101273

Anabaptist Climate Collaborative: Hymnal Data. https://sustainableclimatesolutions.org/hymnal-data/

Johnson, Sarah Kathleen. “The Power of Naming Power: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity: An Analysis of Power in the Making of a Mennonite Worship Book.” Chapter 6 In: Johnson, Sarah Kathleen and Andrew Wymer. Editors, Worship and Power: Liturgical Authority in Free Church Traditions. Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers. 2023. https://wipfandstock.com/9781666732931/worship-and-power/

Author(s)	Victor G Wiebe
Date Published	1 April 2024

Cite This Article

MLA style

Wiebe, Victor G. "Voices Together (Hymnbook)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1 April 2024. Web. 29 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Voices_Together_(Hymnbook)&oldid=178633.

APA style

Wiebe, Victor G. (1 April 2024). Voices Together (Hymnbook). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 29 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Voices_Together_(Hymnbook)&oldid=178633.

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