CONGREGATIONAL singing has always been at the heart of worship in the Church of Scotland.
While other denominations share a common identity through liturgies or prayer, we have always defined ourselves by what we sing. For centuries after the Reformation this was restricted to unaccompanied metrical psalms and paraphrases, but from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards there were increasing influences from a wide range of international and ecumenical sources. With the publication of the Church Hymnary 4th edition (CH4) in 2005 it was possible to see the diversity of what we now sing. It includes songs from every continent, written in many different languages, in a multitude of musical styles, and from almost every strand of world Christianity.