FEATURE

It has been seven years since a chorus of over 300 men gathered at Wheaton College for a joint meeting of the URCNA Synod and the OPC General Assembly. They sang "Come to the Waters", a beautiful hymn based on Revelation 22, written by the late James Montgomery Boice at the dawn of the 21st century. How fitting that the Church should look forward to heaven while at the same time being deeply rooted in God’s mighty redemptive acts in past ages!

"Our church loves using the Trinity Psalter Hymnal!" says Joel Fick, pastor of Redemption OPC, which is thriving in Gainesville, Florida. Pastor Fick and his congregation were early adopters of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal when it was first printed in 2018. Yet even a seven-year-old hymnal seems young and new, and Pastor Fick is still introducing the psalter hymnal to his congregation. "We are singing a 'Psalm of the month' where we learn a new Psalm by singing it each Lord's Day and encouraging its use in family worship. The availability of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal not only in print but also in the digital apps, together with the tunes, really enables the congregation to learn the songs well. By the end of the month the singing is extraordinary!"

Dr. Craig Troxel was actually the very first pastor to load up 340 copies of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal into the back of his Suburban at the 2018 General Assembly for his congregation, Bethel OPC in Wheaton, IL. From those first deliveries at the assembly to the end of 2024, over 100,000 copies are now in print and almost 60% of the congregations of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church are using the Trinity Psalter Hymnal in corporate worship.

It is one thing to load boxes of books into a Suburban, it is quite another thing to load content into a book. By God’s grace, the content of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal was brought together by two psalter hymnal committees, one from the URCNA and one from the OPC, that gave careful scrutiny to each selection. The Rev. Derrick Vander Meulen and Dr. Alan Strange served as the general editors guiding the project to completion, and they continue to serve on the board of the partnership that oversees this ecumenical project. Derrick and Alan were responsible for finding the Genevans at Geneva College to record 20 choral selections of the Psalms just published for streaming on your favorite music service (search for Trinity Psalter Hymnal Album 1).

One key individual during our seven years of production has been Elder Joel Pearce. Actually, Joel has been involved since the inception of the project as he served on the URCNA committee while a deacon and then later on the OPC side of things when he became a ruling elder at Church of the Covenant in Hackettstown. Joel was appointed the Director of Digital Development and in that role helped guide the digital development of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. This includes the excellent website of the same name (trinitypsalterhymnal.org), the outstanding app for smart phone users, and the digital editions of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. In the summer of 2024 Joel passed the baton of managing this project to Elder Sanjay Patel, a new member of the Committee on Christian Education from Theophilus OPC in Anaheim, who was appointed by the CCE to fill Joel’s shoes.

To celebrate these seven years, the Joint Venture Board approved a one-time sale of the pew editions which will last until January 15, 2025. The Board made a large purchase at a special price and is passing on the savings to churches who would like to add the Trinity Psalter Hymnal to their pews or augment their existing supplies. Pastor Dan Halley of flood-ravaged Bay Haven OPC in Tampa is a great example: he ordered 50 so that they can continue to pass them out as gifts for new members to encourage congregational singing and family worship.