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Some people preach with sermons. Some teach with books. Parley P. Pratt did both—but he also taught through song. Few men of the early Restoration combined missionary zeal, scriptural understanding, and poetic expression as beautifully as Parley Parker Pratt. His hymns helped believers not only understand the restored gospel but also feel it. As I worked through Emma Smith's 1835 hymnal, I found myself returning to his words again and again. They are filled with hope, convict

The Man Who Helped the Saints Find Their Song If Isaac Watts gave the early Saints words that connected them to the wider Christian world, William Wines Phelps helped give the Restoration its own voice. Few individuals shaped early Latter-day Saint hymnody more profoundly than W. W. Phelps. He wasn't merely a hymn writer. He was a newspaper editor, printer, publisher, poet, teacher, and devoted servant of the Restoration. His pen helped preserve revelations, proclaim doctrine

If I asked you who contributed the most hymns to Emma Smith's 1835 hymnal, you might answer William W. Phelps or Parley P. Pratt. Their names certainly deserve our gratitude. But the answer might surprise you. The writer whose words appear most often in Emma's first hymnbook wasn't a member of the Restoration at all. It was Isaac Watts. Born more than a century before the Church was organized, Watts became one of the most influential hymn writers in Christian history. His hy

How Shape Notes Helped Ordinary People Learn to Sing Imagine trying to learn to read music if you had never taken a music lesson. No piano. No choir director. No YouTube tutorials. No music classes at school. For many Americans living on the frontier, that wasn't imagination—it was everyday life. Yet somehow thousands of ordinary farmers, blacksmiths, shopkeepers, mothers, and children learned to sing four-part harmony. How? The answer was surprisingly simple. Four little sh

How Frontier Christians Learned to Worship Through Song Step Inside an Early Singing School Imagine living on the American frontier in the early 1830s. There is no radio. No recordings. No internet. Many families own only a handful of books, and formal music lessons are almost unheard of. Yet people loved to sing. They sang in worship. They sang while they worked. They sang around family hearths. They sang at camp meetings. But there was one problem. Many people had never be

The Musical World That Shaped the Emma Smith Hymnal What We Can Learn from Early American Hymnbooks When I began restoring the Emma Smith Hymnal, I assumed I was entering a fairly well-defined musical world. I imagined there would be a handful of standard hymn tunes, a common style of worship, and fairly clear answers about what the early Saints sang. I couldn't have been more mistaken. One of the greatest surprises of this project was discovering that early America was fille

How Emma Smith Helped Give the Restoration Its Voice in Worship The Emma Smith Hymnal Was an Extraordinary Assignment Imagine being a young wife and mother in your mid-twenties. Your family has already endured repeated moves, financial hardship, public criticism, and the heartbreaking loss of children. Your husband is constantly traveling, preaching, translating scripture, and helping establish a brand-new church. Every day seems to bring another challenge. Then the Lord give

A Musical Detective Story: Restoring the Emma Smith Hymnal When most people open a hymnal, they see words and music neatly printed on a page. It feels finished—as though the hymns have always existed exactly as they appear. The truth is often far more interesting. Restoring the Emma Smith Hymnal became, at times, a musical detective story. Each hymn invited a new question. Was this really the original tune? Did early Saints actually sing it this way? Why does one source say o

Have you ever wondered why the same hymn text can sometimes be sung to two—or even three—different melodies? The answer is something called hymn meter. Although many modern hymnbooks print both the words and the music together, early hymnals often included only the hymn texts. Singers were expected to know dozens of familiar tunes, what their meter was and simply match an appropriate melody to the words. They may choose to sing it to one tune one week and another the next! Th

One of the questions I expect to hear from time to time is this: "Why did you choose that tune?" Sometimes the question will be even more pointed: "Why didn't you use the original tune?" They're fair questions. When I began restoring the hymns of Emma Smith's 1835 hymnal, I assumed that finding the music would be the straightforward part of the project. Surely there would be a definitive list of original tunes, and all we would need to do would be match them to the texts. I q

For nearly two thousand years, Christians have gathered to lift their voices together in praise. Discover why congregational singing has remained at the heart of Christian worship and how hymns continue to unite believers, teach truth, and strengthen faith across generations.

Many people are surprised to learn that Emma Smith prepared two early hymn collections—not one. Discover the story of the 1835 and 1841 hymnals, their size, purpose, and lasting place in Restoration worship.

"Sing unto the Lord a new song..." — Psalm 96:1 Welcome! We are delighted you've found us. Over the past several years, what began as a vision to preserve and create Christ-centered hymns has grown into something much larger than we ever imagined. Along the way, we've received countless questions about the hymnals, the Covenant Christian Hymns Conference, new music, and the progress of the various projects currently underway. It became clear that everything needed a home. Thi