The first Sunday with new hymns!

We got new hymns this week and today was the first chance to use them! Between social media and personal connections, I was able to collect hymn data from 93 wards. Let’s see how these new hymns were introduced into these wards!

Note

Note that this blog post will update as I collect more data. I collected data from 54 wards on June 2, but it has grown to 93 since then, which gives a more accurate view of what happened.

First, how many wards sang new hymns? It looks like only about a third. A few wards sang two new hymns and there are even wards that sang three new ones!

Now the real question: what hymns did these wards sing? The table below shows that, probably to no one’s surprise, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#1001) was the most common, by a long shot. Two-thirds of wards that sang new hymns (or one third of all wards in my sample) sang that one today. The next most common was Is is Well with My Soul (#1003). What’s crazy is that Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#1001) is already the 276th [update: 252nd] most common hymn. That may not sound like a lot, but it already shows up more in my database than The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close (#37) and a fair number of other hymns! Check it out here.

What new hymns were sung on June 2, 2024
Based on the wards that sang new hymns
new hymn	wards	proportion
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (1001)	27	65.9%
It Is Well with My Soul (1003)	5	12.2%
As Bread is Broken (1007)	3	7.3%
Bread of Life, Living Water (1008)	2	4.9%
Gethsemane (1009)	2	4.9%
His Eye Is on the Sparrow (1005)	1	2.4%
Think a Sacred Song (1006)	1	2.4%
When the Savior Comes Again (1002)	0	0.0%
I Will Walk with Jesus (1004)	0	0.0%
Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise (1201)	0	0.0%
He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child (1202)	0	0.0%
What Child is This? (1203)	0	0.0%
Star Bright (1204)	0	0.0%

Seven of the 13 introduced hymns were sung in my sample of 93 wards. Interestingly, I Will Walk with Jesus (#1004) was not sung in this sample, even though I think a lot of children are familiar with it after it was introduced in the first Friend-to-Friend in 2021. There was some interesting chatter online about whether the hymns that not arranged in an SATB format and probably intended for children are even appropriate for sacrament meeting. Looks like just one of the four introduced in this style was actually sung Gethsemane (1009)), so it looks like a fair number of people might agree that they’re best suited elsewhere. We’ll see over the next few months if that changes.

Does this mean that Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#1001) will be the most popular in the future? I mean, my guess is it’ll be the most popular of these hymns, but I don’t think it’ll be this popular. This was the first week and so many people have been anxious to sing it. My guess is next week we’ll see more of the new hymns being sung and Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#1001) being sung not quite as much.

As for when during the meeting these new hymns were introduced, it varied. Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (1001) was close to evenly split between opening and closing hymns, with a slight preference for being a closing hymn. The two hymns that are clearly sacrament hymns were indeed sung as such. There was a slight tendency to sing new hymns as a closing hymn rather than an opening or sacrament hymn. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next few weeks and months.

When were new hymns sung in sacramnt meeting?
New Hymn	Opening	Sacrament	Closing
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (1001)	11	0	16
It Is Well with My Soul (1003)	1	0	4
His Eye Is on the Sparrow (1005)	0	0	1
Think a Sacred Song (1006)	1	0	0
As Bread is Broken (1007)	0	3	0
Bread of Life, Living Water (1008)	0	2	0
Gethsemane (1009)	0	1	1

That’s it for now. How exciting is it that we have new hymns? I’ll keep you posted as much as I can!

Update: Tom Anderson’s Data

Tom Anderson put a poll on social media asking people what new hymns they sang. He got data from 30 wards an kindly shared the results with me. He found that Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#1001) was sung in about 73% of wards—a little more than what I found. Four did It Is Well with My Soul (#1003) and one did His Eye Is on the Sparrow (#1005). He even got three people reporting that they sang I Will Walk with Jesus (#1004), which I didn’t get any of.

So, to combine his data with mine, here is an updated list of what hymns were sung on the first day, based on 65 wards.

What new hymns were sung on June 2, 2024?
Based on the wards that sang new hymns
new hymn	wards	proportion
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (1001)	49	69.0%
It Is Well with My Soul (1003)	9	12.7%
As Bread is Broken (1007)	3	4.2%
I Will Walk with Jesus (1004)	3	4.2%
Bread of Life, Living Water (1008)	2	2.8%
Gethsemane (1009)	2	2.8%
His Eye Is on the Sparrow (1005)	2	2.8%
Think a Sacred Song (1006)	1	1.4%
When the Savior Comes Again (1002)	0	0.0%
Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise (1201)	0	0.0%
He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child (1202)	0	0.0%
What Child is This? (1203)	0	0.0%
Star Bright (1204)	0	0.0%