Friday, December 3, 2010

Spanish English Hymnals

Almost a year since my last post! Ugh! Well, since that time we've continued working in our bilingual congregation, but there are many hurdles to overcome. One of them is how to sing together.

Since our Spanish hymnal is quite a bit smaller than our English hymnal, the challenge is first of all how to give the song leaders enough songs to maintain variety and follow the theme of the lessons. We recently purchased a set of our hymnal for use on our newly installed overhead projection system. Unfortunately, not all the files have arrived. The blessing we have is that our building has two screens, so we can project English on one side and Spanish on the other.

However, I'm always looking for ways to improve this system. Eventually we'd like to be able to have the entire worship in both languages, but currently we only do the first part (through the Lord's Supper) together, then break off into English and Spanish.

I wonder if anyone out there has experience in ways of bringing two languages together in worship? What's the best Spanish hymnal out there? Is it good for singing with English speakers?