One purpose for this website is to encourage Christians to experience anew the spiritual blessings available in the rich treasury of classic Christian hymnody. From the Accompaniments page, you can download a piano accompaniment, without charge, for almost every hymn found in the Trinity Hymnal (1990). On the Devotional Hymns page you will find collections of hymn texts well-suited to devotional use.

Another important purpose of the website is to complement two books, authored by David F. Neu, which examine worship and congregational singing in the evangelical church in the light of Jesus' admonition that the worship of God must be in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Information about the books can be found on the Books page, from which you can download or listen to the musical examples used in the books, and also listen to the hymntunes mentioned. Bookmarks for each book are available upon request, again from the Books page.

A third purpose is to support a forthcoming series of podcasts on the subject of "Issues in Congregational Singing." Information is available on the Podcasts page.

Lying at the heart of NeuSong.com, and all that it contains, is our conviction that corporate worship in spirit and truth is the most sublime activity in the Christian life. To be worthy of the designation "worship," the theme of the entire service must be the glory of God, who He is and what He has done; worship is our conscious, immediate and appropriate response to the proclamation of that glory. We also believe that congregational singing is a vital, integral part of worship.

However, we are persuaded that in a significant part of the evangelical church, worship no longer meets this high standard. This is not a recent phenomenon, but one that has been developing over the last 150 years, at an increasing pace in the last half-century. We are not alone in this persuasion, but in spite of the admonitions of honorable, learned voices over many years, the decline in worship continues. One such voice was that of the late A. W. Tozer, a well-respected pastor and author. More than a half-century ago he wrote, “The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.”

We agree with Dr. Tozer's assessment of the church at that time, and we also believe that the concept of God, and with it the worship of the church, have declined markedly since he wrote these words. Writing so long ago, it is not surprising that he made no mention of a possible role of the music of congregational singing in that decline, since musicology had not yet provided the basis for that claim. But the intervening years have seen mounting evidence from scholarly research that leads to that conclusion. In spite of this, the church has not yet understood the crucial importance of the music. We continue to hear it said, usually with great confidence, "The musical style makes no difference; only the words matter." The evidence points in the opposite direction: the musical style makes a very great difference. We present our argument in the books shown on the Books page.

This urgent concern for the well-being of the Church has led to the creation of a website dedicated to the restoration of congregational singing using the rich heritage of classic hymnody.