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"I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the understanding also." (1 Cor 14:15) The components of any spiritual experience are heart and mind—the heart to will and the mind to grasp; the heart to sense and the mind to comprehend. Both are needed. All heart and no mind means fanaticism. All mind and no heart means pharasaism. These songs will warm your heart, for they comprise tried-and-true favorites of our generation. They will stimulate your thoughts, turning them to Calvary and the Christ of God."

With these words, Dr. Bob Cook, president of Youth for Christ International, offered a foreword to the spiral-bound

Singing Youth for Christ songbook of 1948. Three years earlier, YFC had been organized at a meeting in Winona Lake, Indiana, seeking to reach post-war teenagers and military service personnel with the gospel through a program "geared to the times and anchored to the rock." Stepping beyond narrow cultural boundaries (and hymnals), the innovative songbook offered a resource to youth meetings (and ultimately churches) across the country, presenting 115 selections inviting a healthy expression of both the old and new in Christian music. The story behind this gem is wonderfully told by one of its editors, Cliff Barrows. He is best known as the songleader who has served with Billy Graham worldwide in evangelistic crusades and missions for the past six decades. The account presented here is the fruit of our conversations over the past four years, with his warm reflections of evangelical conviction and creativity. –James D. Smith III

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I grew up in the San Juaquin Valley in California. My sister Mary Jean was a pianist. My aunt Helen Griggs (composer of "Gone, gone … yes my sins are gone") taught me the importance of congregational singing and praise. Eventually, I led songs at the First Baptist church in Ceres. After church, Sunday night "sings" would pack the auditorium for an hour or so.

In the later 1940s, groups in each part of the country had their own musical favorites. The Jack Wyrtzen meetings at Word of Life in upstate New York are a great example. Percy and Ruth Crawford, at Pinebrook in Pennsylvania, put together their little "Pinebrook Praises" songbook. Cyrus Nelson, known especially for his leadership at Mt. Hermon Conference Center, published Youth Sings at about that time in Minneapolis. We all knew each other and there was no competition. We simply saw that generation's need for new mediums and melodies to express their worship and fresh texts in their hands as tools to help it happen.

I was at the Youth for Christ organizational meetings in 1945. As the movement grew, we saw the necessity of a book that would draw together great hymns of the church and new songs from different regions, and furnish that to the hundreds of YFC groups (often in Saturday night meetings) nationwide. Many wonderful people supported us. Each one provided his or her own unique inspiration. I was close friends with Homer Rodeheaver, earlier the songleader with Billy Sunday, who liked this different kind of book, and agreed to publish it. He used to say, "Let the people sing!" In our early crusades, Billy [Graham] and I would invite him to come for a night and lead songs with his trombone. George Sandville, music editor and compiler for the Rodeheaver Hallmark Publishing Co in Winona, Indiana, knew more about editing Christian music than anyone and secured the copyrights.

I compiled the songbook with Dr. Frank Phillips, director of Portland YFC (a veterinarian—later, I believe, associated with Bob Pierce and World Vision) and Dr. Bob Cook of Chicago. It came together in a relatively short time. Actually the list of songbook selections largely took shape as my wife Billie and I were living in our car on the road. We'd lead music at camps like Forest Home and Mount Hermon. Then the kids would go back to their home churches providing stepping-stones for spiritual refreshment in the rest of the church.

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