The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released eight additional hymns and songs for the new global hymnbook, “Hymns for Home and Church,” on Thursday, October 29.
As new hymns are released, they can be found in the Gospel Library on the Church’s website and in the Gospel Library app, as well as at music.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
To date, the Church has released 90 new songs in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French in eight release batches.
The Church also announced Thursday, October 29, that the printed version of the hymnbook will contain 394 hymns. The printed version should be ready in these four languages by the end of 2027. Further translations will follow.
German, Korean, Japanese, and Tagalog have also received multiple batches, and Armenian, Cebuano, Indonesian, Italian, Malagasy, Samoan, Tongan, Vietnamese, and Russian are all in the early stages of release.
Some of these newer songs will be familiar to many people. For example, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is a standard Christian Advent hymn, often sung and played during the Christmas season. “Be Thou My Vision” is an Irish Christian classic, and “Our Savior Brings Us Joy” originated in Swedish in the 1800s and is popular in African countries.
Another Christmas song added to the new hymnbook in this release is “A Quiet Night,” written by Ann Green Buys and submitted to the hymnbook committee in 2018.
The other new hymns in the batch are also new submissions from Latter-day Saint songwriters.
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have been closely involved in all aspects of the new hymnbook, including the selection of hymns for inclusion in the print and digital versions. The anthems that have been approved – new and old – achieve the following five objectives:
- Does the song increase faith and worship toward Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ?
- Does the hymn teach the fundamental doctrine of the gospel with power and clarity?
- Does the hymn invite joyful singing at home and in church?
- Does the song comfort the weary and inspire members to endure in faith?
- Does the hymn unify members of the entire Church?
Not all of the current hymns in the current hymnbook will be in the new book, Elder Dale G. Renlund explained in 2025.
“Your favorite hymn may not be included. So, keep your current hymnbook and continue to enjoy your old favorites at home,” he said.
Mark D. Eddy, General Authority Seventy and counselor for the hymnbook, said: “As we worship together and joyfully sing these hymns, we hope you will feel what we felt in preparing this new hymnbook. We have found increased faith in the eternal truths taught in its words, and courage and peace in the beautiful sound and structure of its music. May we receive what the Lord has prepared for us. each of us in these sacred songs of the heart.
Stephen M. Jones, who is a member of the Hymnbook Committee, chairs the Music Editorial Subcommittee and has participated in this multi-year process of reviewing the Church’s current hymnbook and children’s songbook, hymns and songs from current non-English Church hymnbooks, previously published hymns, existing hymns from other Christian traditions, and more than 17,000 original submissions.
Jones said the hymnbook committee would essentially say, “This sounds interesting, but it doesn’t quite meet the goals of the brethren.” » So the committee would “send it to either the text editorial committee or the music editing committee. And then we would suggest changes based on their requests or their suggestions. And we would go back and forth,” Jones said. “It was a lot of work.”
Some well-known hymns and songs, both from Latter-day Saints and other religious traditions, have undergone revisions to make them more musically successful or more doctrinally accurate. Modifications or suggestions would then be sent to the authors and composers, if they were still alive.
“We went back and forth until everything was settled,” Jones said. “Our work was then passed to Church leaders, who made final decisions regarding the music and lyrics. »
One of the goals of the new hymnbook was to help unify members throughout the Church. With more than 17 million members speaking 125 languages, “Hymns for Home and Church” is truly a global hymnbook, allowing members to learn music that has been created and enjoyed in other world cultures.
An article in the Liahona pointed out that after Emma Smith was ordered to compile a hymnbook, most of the hymns in the subsequent 1835 hymnbook came from other Christian traditions. “But Emma and others looked forward to the day when the Church would be ‘blessed with a great variety of songs from Zion,’” the article said.
Now, at the point of publishing songs in “Hymns for Home and Church,” 74 percent of all hymns and songs have at least one contributor – such as an author, composer or arranger – who is a Latter-day Saint.
Gn entert
