Kingdom songs are the hymns sung by Jehovah's Witnesses at their religious meetings. Since 1879, the Watch Tower Society has published hymnal lyrics; by the 1920s they had published hundreds of adapted and original songs, and by the 1930s they referred to these as "Kingdom songs" in reference to God's Kingdom.
With the 1966 release of Singing and Accompanying Yourselves with Music in Your Hearts, a policy was introduced to use only songs written by Witnesses. Subsequent collections were released in 1984 and in 2009, each retaining, retiring, or revising previous songs and introducing new songs. By 2010, an edition of their current hymnal Sing to Jehovah was available in 44 languages, including several sign languages.
In addition to songbooks containing sheet music and lyrics, releases in various audio formats have included vocals in several languages, piano instrumentals, and orchestral arrangements. The orchestral arrangements, referred to as Kingdom Melodies, are drawn from the three most-recent collections. Jehovah's Witnesses use Kingdom songs in their worship at their congregations meetings and larger events.
Read more about Kingdom Songs: Collections, Use in Worship, Personal Use
Famous quotes containing the words kingdom and/or songs:
“How we dwelt in two worlds
the daughters and the mothers
in the kingdom of the sons.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)