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Good morning. If you’ve moved in church circles as long as I have, you will know that few things annoy the congregation more than having to sing a hymn to the wrong tune. They stand, ready to belt out ‘O for a thousand tongues’—but then the organ plays something completely different, and everything is ruined. Emails of complaint will be fired off later, from saddened and disappointed worshippers.

It’s easy to poke fun at people’s reluctance to change, even if that change is in fact an improvement. I always deeply resent carrier updates to my phone, for example. But there really is some alchemy that happens when the right hymn tune is paired with the right words, even in thoroughly secular settings. It’s impossible to imagine a rugby crowd singing ‘Guide me O thou Great redeemer’ to anything other than Cwm Rhondda; or an FA cup final with ‘Abide With Me’ sung to a new tune composed specially for the occasion.

There’s something about hymn singing that bypasses the intellect. This is not to say it’s a mindless activity, more that when the rational mind balks at all the problems, the words and music together take a short cut to the heart. The hair on the back of our necks prickles. We feel ourselves welling up. And we may find that against all the odds, we believe what we are singing.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. Amen.