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Three years ago, MercyMe frontman Bart Millard released his first solo project—a collection of timeless hymns he called Hymned. In August, he released Hymned Again. Ignite Your Faith got to talk with Millard about why he's recording hymns and the upcoming 10-year anniversary of the MercyMe song, "I Can Only Imagine."

What led you to return to a second record of hymns?

The first record was a promise I made to my grandmother right before she passed away to do a hymns record. I knew I wanted to make it happen again after hearing my kids asking to hear "Old Rugged Cross" again. I realized, Man, my church doesn't sing the hymns like they used to. They were such a big part of my upbringing. I want them to be a big part of my kids' lives, even if it means I have to record them to make that happen.

What makes old hymns different from modern worship?

You know, I think it was Bob Dylan who said, "All the good songs have been written." I think that sometimes applies to hymns as well. Current artists—MercyMe included—have a tendency to speak a language today in all of the worship songs that is very, very similar. We tend to recycle the same phrases. Hymns do the same thing, but for whatever reason, they read a lot differently than worship songs do now. Maybe it's just because of the way we talked or wrote back then compared to now.

People are often saying, "What's the big deal about remembering these songs?" For me, I think it's being reminded of how generations before us worshiped and why they worshiped and what they were going through.  Almost all the old songs on this album—and I didn't realize this until afterwards—were written from the 1800s era. One thing I noticed looking through these hymns was that in the 1700s and before, they are very vertical—singing straight to God. Then, Christianity went through this great revival phase where everything's horizontal—urging our brother and sister to come to Jesus and get right because things are about to happen, things are about to change. There was an incredible sense of urgency that people get saved immediately. It's very evangelistic.

How early did you have the dream to do the hymns?

I've always been a fan of hymns but I never thought to do the first record until my grandmother passed away in 1999. It was probably a year before she died that we talked about it. I just never thought it could happen because I didn't know if I could convince MercyMe to do it. I didn't know if it would sell records. I never even thought about doing it as a solo project. But that's where "I Can Only Imagine" is a blessing and a curse. I mean, you can remain under the shadow of that song for the rest of your career. But its success opened the possibility for me to go and do a pet project like this. With that song, MercyMe was in a place where I could do this kind of thing. While I won't say it completely doesn't matter, I'm not so concerned with what the album does financially. I'm just hooked on hymns.

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