philosophy
The Hymn Collective is a collaborative community of hymn writers and musicians in Birmingham, AL striving to facilitate and promote the creation and use of modern and retuned hymns in the worship of the Church. We believe these hymns are a middle path of worship style between “traditional” and “contemporary” bringing together the richness and depth of traditional hymns and the modern musical sensibilities of contemporary worship. Both ancient and authentic, these hymns stir our minds, hearts, and wills through a heritage of beautiful poetry, demonstrating a robust theology, and set in our own musical language.
Many of the hymn texts we sing are hundreds of years old and remind us of a faith that is bigger than ourselves, passed down through the centuries. We want to embrace that. While our worship should be grounded in our heritage as people of God, it should also reflect who we are now and must speak to our time. To that end, we create new hymn tunes that suit our own musical language.
The Hymn Collective builds on the hymn-writing and hymn-singing legacies Red Mountain Church, a PCA church in Birmingham. Our founder, Jeff Koonce, is the Chief Musician at Red Mountain and continues RMC’s long-standing commitment to the exclusive use of modern and re-tuned hymns. Jeff was also involved with Red Mountain Music, which began at RMC. Being in the vanguard of the re-tuned hymn movement, RMM produced over 60 hymns and 7 albums 2003-2010. Through this involvement with Red Mountain Church and Red Mountain Music, the Hymn Collective has gained the knowledge and experience to be a cornerstone for advice and training in the creation and implementation of hymns in worship and an effective arbiter of hymn-related resources. In addition, we are committed to creating and developing our own hymns and arrangements for use in the worship of the Church.
We create new hymns for worship by setting old hymn texts to newly composed, modern tunes. We also make new, modern arrangements of traditional hymn tunes. There is a bit of a learning curve to this style of worship, especially if singing hymns is new to you. Our hope is that over time the richness of the texts and the relevance of the music will work together to deepen our faith and experience of God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ.
We want to promote this style to as many people and churches as possible, support those that already do it with accessible resources, and teach it to those that might be interested in starting to utilize it. We want the Church to worship well and we are here to help.
“Hymns for the Church, by the Church"
-Jeff Koonce, founder