FEATURE

The 2006 General Assembly directed the Committee on Christian Education to “develop a Psalter-Hymnal ... which includes musical settings of all 150 Psalms, in their entirety, with as much accuracy and as little archaic language and confusing syntax as possible.” Last summer, the United Reformed Churches in North America, whose Psalter-hymnal Committee had been working on a revised Psalter-hymnal for some years, accepted the OPC’s invitation to join in this project. The two committees began collaboration in earnest last fall.

The proposed Psalter is being presented to the upcoming General Assembly, meeting June 5–11. It is hoped that the OPC General Assembly and URC Synod will give final approval to both the Psalter and hymnal selections by 2016, with production to begin thereafter.

Interested OPCers are invited to examine the Psalter selections on a special joint website, psalterhymnal.org. A password is required (the password is available from the CCE secretary). Once you have the password, go to psalterhymnal.org and follow the link marked “click here” to view the files. If Acrobat Reader is installed (a link to download it is given), clicking on a file will display the text and music in your browser. You may print out a single copy of each selection for your own personal use, but after evaluation it should be destroyed, as copyrights need to be secured. Comments and suggestions may be sent to comments@psalterhymnal.org. Wording and musical notation are constantly being perfected, so keep checking back for the latest version.

It is our prayer that the proposed Psalter-hymnal will be used by the Lord to encourage the church to offer up God-honoring praise in its worship. Thank you for your prayerful interest in this project.