Winnah Winnah Potluck Dinnah!

The good folks at Christianity Today magazine took a look at a lot of old hymnals for an article in their March issue, which focuses on worship.

They wanted to see which hymns have lasted through the years in the American church, and came up with 13 hymns that appeared in 28 different hymnals throughout the history of several U.S. denominations. Nine others made it into 27 of the 28 hymnals and five were in 26 of 28.

So I'll do a little non-scriptural denominational boasting and note that of the 27 hymns CT listed, four were written by Charles Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist movement with his brother John (The movement wouldn't become a separate church until after the American Revolution when its Anglican base became a wee bit unpopular). Ol' Chuck is one up on his next competitor, Isaac Watts, and those two are the only hymn writers to make the list more than once. Isaac does, however, put two hymns in the 28-for-28 list while Chuck only has one. John Mason Neale's two appearances are as a translator of older hymns, although he also wrote some of his own, such as "Good King Wenceslas."  

John Newton appears on the list, as might be expected, but with "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken" instead of his best-known hymn, "Faith's Review and Expectation." Of course, most of us know that one better as "Amazing Grace," and one reason it may not have made the list of appearing in all of those hymnals is that it developed its popularity later than a lot of other hymns. Steve Turner wrote a sort of biography of "Amazing Grace" that outlines how both the poem and the tune connected to it grew together until it reached its modern ubiquity.

Anyway, congrats to Chuck Wesley, writing the hymns everybody sings in church since the 18th century!