New Methodist hymn book.

I have just received this week's Methodist Recorder (yes it is a day late)and started to skim through to see what caught my eye and arrived at the letters page where there are a number of letters relating to the proposed new hymn book.
The first letter I read is about changing of words to hymns and I have to say I do not understand why we have to change the words of hymns that certainly people in my generation grew up with. To be honest the proposed changes to 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind' strike me as political correctness gone stark raving bonkers.

The other thing that I struggle with is that the new book is supposedly a 'supplement' to Hymns and Psalms and according to the dictionary definition I would have been expecting the new book to contain nothing that is already in Hymns and Psalms. According to one correspondent the book will contain 815 items with 320 of them already being available in Hymns and Psalms.

The Merriam Webster on-line dictionary gives this definition for a supplement : a part added to or issued as a continuation of a book or periodical to correct errors or make additions.

Have I missed something or am I misinterpreting the definition.

I suppose conference will approve it but believe it will be interesting to see how many churches across the connexion actually take it up in either format. I don't see many churches in our circuit expressing much interest.

New Methodist Hymnbook

I am fairly confident that many readers will know of the proposals for a new Methodist Hymnbook to be produced and that there is a group working on this.
In this weeks Methodist Recorder which I have received this morning there is a list of the proposed contents of the new hymn book. The list contains some questions that the music group are asking people to feedback on by the end of January 2009.
The list is also available on the Methodist Church Website at www.methodist.org.uk/newhymnbook

I will be looking at this closely during the next week and may comment again on it when I have.