Bringing diverse voices together
Mennonites are stereotyped as people who love singing and forming committees. Anneli Loepp Thiessen fulfills both of these stereotypes. The 23-year-old is one of 12 people from Canada and the United States who make up the Voices Together committee charged with making a new Mennonite hymnal planned for release in 2020. Voices Together is a…
Voices Together visual art chosen
Visual art for the Voices Together hymnal has been chosen by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee. The 12 visual art pieces selected will appear in the forthcoming hymnal—including the pew, worship leader, digital app and projection editions. These pieces will be placed throughout Voices Together, inviting worshippers to encounter God creatively in ways that engage…
Is there such a thing as a Mennonite song?
How many of the songs in our Hymnal: A Worship Book (HWB), and the two supplements Sing the Journey and Sing the Story do you think are Mennonite? What does that even mean? If it means songs that are embraced by Mennonites in worship, well, the answer might be all of them. If it means songs with what…
Singing a new song
What will the Mennonite church in North America look like in the next 30 years? No one has a crystal ball, but one group of forward-thinking people is helping us imagine how we might be doing congregational worship in the next generation. Last weekend, I attended a one-day resourcing event on Voices Together, the new…
Voices Together committee seeks input
Six people who have been meeting virtually for the last two years via videoconference gathered together in person for the first and only time this summer to speak through and listen to the worship resources that will be part of Voices Together, a new hymnal to be published by MennoMedia in 2020 for Mennonite Church…
Voices Together announced as title for new hymnal
The new worship and song collection for Mennonite Church U.S.A. and MC Canada will be called Voices Together. “In early February, more than 900 people responded to a title and cover survey we released via our MennoMedia Facebook page,” says Amy Gingerich, executive director and publisher at MennoMedia. “Of the four title choices offered,…
Singing into the future
Music is an integral part of Mennonite worship. Whether it’s in church, at camp, at school or in everyday activities, songs have been faithful companions to Mennonites for centuries. They can get so invested in music that it can be a point of unification but also a dispute that causes tension and division. The importance…
Music selection for new hymnal shaped by new table of contents
The work of the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee is slow and joyful and involves a lot of singing. The 14-person committee, working as the “Resonate Team,” sang and processed more than 200 songs at its February gathering in Union, Mich., a year after it started the selection process. The group continues to discern what…
Mennonites to compile new hymnal and more
Meeting the week of April 13 in Minneapolis, representatives from MennoMedia, Mennonite Church Canada, and Mennonite Church USA laid the foundation for a new Mennonite song collection that is anticipated to be released in 2020. The new song collection will be more than a printed hymnal, and will certainly include an electronic version as well…
