How does Sing Praise differ from our current hymn books?

Sing Praise aims to bring together new and as yet untested material with recently written songs and hymns already becoming familiar but not included in most standard hymn books. There are many new hymn texts paired with well-known tunes, making them easy to incorporate into services, while a few older texts appear with freshly composed settings. Some strong new tunes have been found to match imaginative words. Choirs will find plenty for them to enjoy singing, as will churches with less traditional musical ensembles, but the needs of congregations with very limited resources have not been ignored.

The book is arranged thematically rather than alphabetically. It includes a few resources specifically for morning and evening worship, hymns and songs for seasons of the Church's year and for different types of service, a number of metrical paraphrases of psalms and canticles, some prayer responses and other short chants (including eleven from Taizé), and material relating to the Church's ministry and mission as well as to subjects like peace, justice and environmental concern.

As part of the selection process, members of the editorial team trawled through many collections published within the last ten years or so, and looked in various places for evidence of newer material that was already being found broadly useful in worship. They tried to ensure that women were well represented among the authors and composers and to identify younger writers whose work deserves to be brought to a wider audience. Familiar names such as Timothy Dudley-Smith and John Bell of the Iona Community are also well represented 

The editors tried to identify subject areas poorly served by traditional hymnody or contemporary song repertoire. They also looked at the full range of material published as part of the Common Worship project, aiming to provide words and music to help those who plan and lead services. While the needs of Anglican congregations have been the chief focus, it's clear that Sing Praise will be a valuable resource for other churches too.