About Hymnary.org

Do you search for hymns and worship music for worship services? Are you researching a particular hymn? Looking for an arrangement or media file? If so, Hymnary.org is for you. Hymnary.org is an online hymn and worship music database for worship leaders, hymnologists, and amateur hymn lovers alike. At Hymnary.org you can search or browse hymns by title, tune, meter, key, scripture reference, and more.

In partnership with The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, Hymnary.org now houses the Dictionary of North American Hymnology, adding over a million first lines of hymns, collected and organized by Leonard Ellinwood and later digitized by Mary Louise VanDyke and Paul Powell with the help of Hymn Society members all over the U.S and Canada -- making Hymnary.org the most complete database of North American hymnody on the planet.

How to Search

  • Use the "Search the entire Hymnary" box on the top right corner for a Google-like search of everything.
  • For more flexible searches use the Advanced Search page.
  • You can also restrict your search to just hymnals in your own collection. First, go to your My Hymnals page. After you have added some hymnals, you can use the "My Hymnals" checkbox on the Advanced Search page to search only within the hymnals you own.
  • For more about searching, have a look at our search tips page.

How to Help

Volunteers play a pivotal role at Hymnary.org. If you'd like to add a favorite hymnal, proofread existing information, become an editor, or otherwise help out, have a look at our volunteer page.

Questions?

Please see our frequently asked questions page. For questions regarding FlexScores, please see our FlexScore frequently asked questions page.

Staff and Editorial Board

Hymnary.org was started in 2007 and it is located at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Staff includes a director, a business manager, a Web development manager, seven Web developers, two editors, an administrator, a marketing manager and student interns.

An editorial board sets policy and creates editing standards. The board has the following members:

  • Stephanie Budwey is the Luce Dean’s Faculty Fellow Assistant Professor of the History and Practice of Christian Worship and the Arts at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School. She is the Director of Research of the Hymn Society for the Editorial Board of Hymnary.
  • Harry Plantinga is a professor of computer science at Calvin University, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the director of ccel.org and hymnary.org.
  • Greg Scheer is a composer (Augsburg Fortress, GIA, Abingdon Press), author (The Art of Worship-Baker 2006, contributions to The Hymn, Call to Worship, Worship Leader), and co-founder of Hymnary.org
  • Tina Schneider, Professor and Library Director at The Ohio State University at Lima, is the editor of the Dictionary of North American Hymnology. From 2008 to 2014, she served as Director of Research for the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.
  • Marcell Steuernagel is the Assistant Professor of Church Music and Director of the Master of Sacred Music degree program at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and the Member-at-large of the Hymn Society for the Editorial Board of Hymnary.

Contributions

  • Bill Richards collected and documented many thousands of published hymn tune arrangements over the past 20+ years. He graciously provided Hymnary with these arrangements which are now listed on tune authority pages. Thanks to his work, church musicians can now view available arrangements of a tune for various instruments.

Permissions

  • APAD Digital Recordings for permission to reproduce some big singing recordings
  • The estates of Alan Lomax and George Pullen Jackson for permission to reproduce recordings from the 37th annual session of the Alabama Sacred Harp Singing Convention at Birmingham, Ala., August 1942
  • Leonard E. Smith for permission to make available sheet music, MP3 recording and hymn texts
  • International Adventist Musicians Association (IAMA) and Dan Schultz to include biographies from their website
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