The Fourth Batch of New Hymns!

general
frequency
new hymns
Author

Joey Stanley

Published

June 15, 2025

Modified

August 5, 2025

On June 12th, 2025, the church released the fourth batch of new hymns. In previous posts, I have covered in detail the first, second, and third batches of hymns and how they were incorporated into sacrament meetings. This page covers period since when the fourth batch came out and will update weekly as more data comes in.

Currently I have data from 5,118 sacrament meetings from 1,009 wards since June 15, 2025. Here’s how much data I have for each week so far, just so you have an idea of what I’m working with.

Number of wards I have data from, by week
Since June 15th, 2025
date wards
June 15 605
June 22 522
June 29 438
July 06 728
July 13 763
July 20 688
July 27 653
August 03 721

How many wards sang new hymns each week?

The following plot show what percentage of wards sang from each of the new batches of hymns, per week, since June 2024 when the new hymns started getting rolled out. I’ve included data from all batches just so you can compare them to each other.

Since the fourth batch was released, we’ve seen a very slow rise in popularity. July 27th was the best so far with almost 6% of wards singing from this batch.

Here’s another version of the same plot but instead of the actual dates, it’s in terms of how many weeks since the batches came out. This version of the plot is useful to spot any parallel trends across the batches, especially in the first few weeks of their release.

Here we can see that each batch is a little less popular than the previous one, both overall and week by week. Nearly 20% of wards sang from the first batch the week it came out. About 8% did for the second batch. About 1% for the third batch. And of the 576 wards I have data from on June 15th, just one of them sang from the fourth batch. Granted, it was Father’s Day, but after almost two months, still only a few wards have sung from this batch.

What hymns are most popular each week?

It’s been long enough that we can get an idea of which hymns were popular when. The following plot shows the percentage of wards that sang each hymn of the wards that sang any fourth batch hymns.

The most obvious trend is that I’m a Pioneer Too (#1034) saw a big spike at the end of July, which is the Sunday before Pioneer Day here in Utah. On July 20th, half of wards that sang from the fourth batch sang that hymn that day.

When during meetings are these hymns sung?

We can also see when during sacrament meetings these hymns have been sung. Data sparsity makes this a pretty unreliable table though. We’ll have to wait a few more weeks or months to really see some more meaningful trends.

When were new hymns sung in sacrament meeting?
Since June 15, 2025
New Hymn Opening Sacrament Intermediate Closing
Look unto Christ (1032)
22%
0%
52%
26%
Oh, How Great Is Our Joy (1033)
41%
0%
29%
29%
I'm a Pioneer Too (1034)
24%
0%
58%
18%
As I Keep the Sabbath Day (1035)
30%
10%
10%
50%
Read the Book of Mormon and Pray (1036)
50%
0%
50%
0%
I'm Gonna Live So God Can Use Me (1037)
44%
0%
44%
11%
The Lord's My Shepherd (1038)
25%
0%
12%
62%
Because (1039)
31%
0%
38%
31%
His Voice as the Sound (1040)
38%
0%
25%
38%
O Lord, Who Gave Thy Life for Me (1041)
8%
84%
4%
4%
Note: Each row adds up to 100%.

Conclusion

That’s it for now. So far, it seems like this batch has been less popular. A part of it might be just sheer numbers: it’s smaller than the third batch but still bigger than the second batch. We’ve also had some holidays here and there, like Father’s Day, 4th of July, and Pioneer Day, so those likely take precedent. It may also just be that the novelty of new hymns has worn off, although it’s important to note that almost half of wards are singing at least one new hymn each week. So maybe it’s that we’re still getting used to the hymns in the first batches before moving on to this latest one. Anyway, we’ll see what happens next week!