New Songs for Holy Week (Unbound Highlights)

Join GIA Editor for Congregational Song Adam M. L. Tice as he explores repertoire from the Unbound project for Holy Week, Year B. 

For specific resources referenced in this video, please see the links below. Visit GIA’s Unbound project for more hymns, texts, and resources. 

For download only, this compilation features 12 Holy Week hymn texts from a variety of authors set to both new and traditional tunes.

David Bjorlin is a pastor and seminary professor with a unique ability to put practical theology into poetic forms. He states that “The act of true praise is always a protest against all that curses or denigrates the Creator’s world and the people made in the Creator’s image; and an act of true protest is always in praise of a world that the protestor has begun to envision and works to make real.” 

Many of these 50 texts were written in response to particular injustices of church and state, with titles such as: “Build a Longer Table,” “When Pharaoh Came for Children,” “If We Eat Our Lavish Banquets,” and “I Met a Stranger on the Road.” Others are responses to the signs of hope and beauty that evoke our praise, including such titles as: “Light Is Kindled in the Darkness,” “Dare to Live the Dream God Gave You,” We Thank You God for Human Love,” and “For All Who Craft Their Words with Skill.”

The texts are paired both with familiar tunes and newly-composed ones by Benjamin Brody, Lim Swee Hong, Sally Ann Morris, and others.