Most PCA Churches Have a Stealth Psalter
By Brad Isbell
Many PCA churches (more than half?) have a psalter and they don’t even know it. Of course, some churches have switched to the excellent, newer Trinity Psalter Hymnal or another good psalter, but if a church has the very common Trinity Hymnal they already have nearly a psalter’s worth of psalms at their disposal.
Around 140 selections in the Trinity Hymnal can be considered as psalms—some being more or less “loose” in adaptation. This document of unknown origin may be helpful for congregations or families who want to be more intentional about psalm singing:
(UPDATE: Here’s a spreadsheet version you can download.)
Listed are all the selections that may be considered as psalms, along with source, and the unknown author’s opinion about how familiar and easy to sing they are, plus “type”—metrical, version, or paraphrase. Metrical may imply most faithful to the biblical text; version may imply more liberties taken; and paraphrase would be the loosest of adaptations.
At any rate, this is a helpful resource for pastors and sessions. We are thankful for whoever put it together way back in 2004.
Strange as it may seem, some presbyterian pastors, elders, and church members are resistant to psalm singing or more psalm singing. This list may help the resistant to see that they’ve been singing more psalms than they think or may help sessions work psalms into the liturgy in an unobtrusive way.
Learn more about the history of Reformed psalm singing here.
Perhaps contacting Dr. Frank Smith would be a good idea to see if he knows who may have produced that index of psalms in the Red Trinity Hymnal? My understanding is that he was either the primary driver behind the words-only Trinity Psalter mentioned by Brandon M., or he was a significant part of getting it produced.
For those who don't know the history, Dr. Smith is the son of one of the founding members of the PCA. He served for many years as a conservative pastor in the PCA before leaving for the RPCNA.
Great resource. Thank you for sharing it!
Many PCA folks I run into also don't know that many years ago, the PCA produced a words-only super thin Trinity Psalter designed to accompany and use the tunes found right in the Trinity Hymnal.
While there might be better Psalters out there nowadays, this is a relatively cheap and great way to retain the beloved Trinity Hymnal while also having the ability to sing all 150 Psalms where the psalms are actually identified as such unlike the ones "hiding" in the Trinity Hymnal (ex: "Psalm 1" in TP instead of "That Man is Blessed" in TH).
Trinity Psalter can be found here: https://www.gcp.org/ProductListMultiple.aspx?name=Trinity+Psalter&cat0=Psalter&resort=false
Perhaps prayerfully bring it to your pastor or session or music director's attention as maybe a second step to take after getting use to singing the psalms already found within the TH as the document Brad posted would probably be the best first step to take (maybe just see if they can actually be identified as psalms when they're chosen to be sung so the congregation knows that they're singing Scripture).