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Whenever I open my copy of Tabernacle Hymns, Number Four, published in 1941, I can hear my mother's strong soprano voice. On the inside of the tattered cover is a handwritten list of hymn titles, most with corresponding page numbers. A few, like "In the Garden," "Mansion Over the Hilltop," and "Oh, How He Loves You & Me," (which are not in the hymnal) are listed simply because my mother, while she was alive, loved singing them.

Whether you can carry a tune or not, worship songs, traditional or contemporary, invite us into God's presence. With that in mind, we asked our readers to list their favorite hymns and praise songs. More than 500 responded, and here are the top ten:

Folk/pop singer Judy Collins, PBS host Bill Moyers, and grieving family members of the 1998 Swissair crash off Nova Scotia, each have had "Amazing Grace" experiences, as author D. Bruce Hindmarsh notes in the preface to his book, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition (Eerdmans, paperback ed. © 2001).

In 1970, Collins recorded the hymn on her album, Whales and Nightingales; within weeks it topped the charts. Moyers explored the history of the song in his popular 1989 PBS special, "Amazing Grace." Most poignant is the story from the crash that killed all 229 passengers aboard Swissair 111.

"The grief of the family members who gathered at the small village of Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, and looked out over the rocks toward the waves where their loved ones had died was unspeakable," Hindmarsh writes. "In the midst of all this sorrow, a family spontaneously began to sing 'Amazing Grace.' Everyone at the water's edge, including the firemen and rescue workers, were transfixed until the hymn was finished."

If he had been there, John Newton would have joined in.

The eighteenth century British slave trader escaped numerous brushes with death without acknowledging God's providence. But during one tumultuous night on the sea in 1747, he began to read The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. One phrase—"the uncertain continuance of life"—along with a passage from Proverbs, "Because I have called and ye have refused,. … I also will laugh at your calamity" brought a repentant Newton to his knees.

Eight years later, Newton left the sea behind him. Eventually he was ordained in the Anglican church. "Amazing Grace" was one of 281 hymns Newton wrote for a Thursday evening prayer service. The words of the song may indeed have been autobiographical, but they were also based on David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 17:16, 17.

A green countryside, a sudden thunderstorm, and the glistening beauty afterward inspired Swedish pastor Carl Boberg to write the original nine verses of "O Great God" in 1886. The hymn was subsequently translated into German and Russian. Rev. Stuart K. Hine, a British missionary in the Ukraine, often sang the Russian version with his wife in their ministry. Eventually, the Hines translated three stanzas into English, and in 1948 Rev. Hine penned an original fourth verse. The hymn gained popularity in North America in the 1950s at Billy Graham crusades. George Beverly Shea remembers singing it 99 times with the crusade choir in the New York meetings of 1957.

In 1969, Bill and Gloria Gaither were expecting their third child. Their firstborn, Suzanne, was four, and her sister Amy was three months old. The timing for another baby wasn't ideal since Gloria hadn't fully recuperated from Amy's birth. On top of that, Bill contracted mononucleosis. Health concerns weren't the only issues the couple faced: a recent divorce in the family and a rift with a close friend weighed on their minds. Another friend's strong prayer support gave the Gaithers hope.

About six months later, Bill's dad, George, beckoned the couple into the middle of their office parking lot—newly paved the previous fall. There, a single blade of grass had broken through the blacktop. Against the odds, life triumphed!

In July, a healthy baby, Benjamin, was born. Soon after, "Because He Lives" poured out of Bill's grateful heart.

Early in his life, struggling Indiana insurance agent Thomas Chisholm honed his writing skills at a newspaper in Franklin, Kentucky, before applying his business aptitude to the Pentecostal Herald in Louisville. Ordained as a Methodist minister, Chisholm had to resign after a year because of his poor health. In 1909 he started selling insurance, but kept writing Christian poetry. The words of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," written in 1923, resonated with Rev. W. M. Runyan of Moody Bible Institute, who wrote the accompanying music.

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, George Bennard joined the Salvation Army as a teenager after his father's death. Ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he conducted revivals in Michigan and New York. While staying in Albion, Michigan, Bennard felt doubly inspired—composing the melody of "The Old Rugged Cross" and then the words. He knew it was finished when the words "were put into my heart in answer to my own need." The hymn was introduced at revival meetings in Pokagon, Michigan, on June 7, 1913. For years it was acknowledged to be America's favorite gospel hymn.

The words of this hymn are inscribed on a monument near Port Hope, Ontario, along with a tribute to its author, Joseph Scriven. Life seemed to be going well for the Irishman until the night before his wedding when his fiancee was thrown from a horse into a river and drowned. Wanting to put distance between himself and his sorrow, Scriven moved to Canada.

"What a Friend in Jesus" was inserted in a letter to his ill mother in 1855 to comfort her. When Ira Sankey, D.L. Moody's song leader, came across the words, he commissioned a tune. It became an overnight success.

Being blind didn't prevent Fanny Crosby from being the most prolific hymn writer of all time. Her memory was so astute she could retain the verses of some 40 hymns before having to write them down. In the early 1870s, Crosby wrote "To God Be the Glory." Thanks to two evangelists—D.L. Moody, who with Ira Sankey, introduced it in Great Britain in 1873, and Billy Graham, who showcased the hymn in 1954 at the Greater London Crusade before bringing it back home, the hymn was embraced by the masses.

In 1977, Jack Hayford, founding pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and his wife, Anna, were on a two-week vacation meandering through Scotland, Wales, and England. At Blenheim Palace, the massive estate built in the early eighteenth century for John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough and ancestor of the future prime minister, Hayford summed up the stunning surroundings with a single sentence: "There is majesty in all this." Hayford couldn't stop thinking about the word majesty.

As his thoughts turned to a higher Ruler, a worshipful praise song emerged.

As Australian worship leader Darlene Zschech (pronounced "check") revealed in an interview with Today's Christian Woman (March/April 2001), she didn't set out to write a globally popular praise song when she penned "Shout to the Lord" in 1993. "I wrote it when I was feeling discouraged. I felt I could either scream and pull my hair out—or praise God."

Darlene and her husband, Mark, had two babies at the time and were struggling financially. Out of the stress came words that would eventually be performed for the Pope and the President of the United States as well as by congregations worldwide.

This hymn written by poet-bishop Heber is sometimes called a metrical paraphrase of Revelation 4:8-11. A member of a distinguished Yorkshire family, Heber graduated from Oxford, where he showed his writing talent with an award-winning poem. For 16 years, Heber served as a parish priest in an obscure Anglican church in Hodnet. He wrote "Holy, Holy, Holy" for Trinity Sunday; the text was published in 1826. Heber then accepted a call as the bishop of Calcutta, India, where he died three years later.

Alfred Lord Tennyson considered "Holy, Holy, Holy" the finest hymn ever written.

Other top vote-getters: "In the Garden" (top write-in vote), "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High," "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name," "Awesome God," "A Mighty Fortress," "And Can It Be," "Give Thanks," "Shine, Jesus Shine," "Jesus Loves Me," "Be Thou My Vision," and "His Name is Wonderful."

Reader Sharon Ellison of Benedict, Nebraska, summed it up well on her ballot noting her top three choices: "It was on 'The Old Rugged Cross' by his 'Amazing Grace' I was saved. 'Lord, I Lift Your Name on High!'''

Want to Know More About Your Favorite Songs?

Some resources to get you started

The One-Year Book of Hymns, Robert K. Brown and Mark R. Norton, eds. (Tyndale)

John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition, D. Bruce Hindmarsh
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis
The One-Year Book of Hymns, Robert K. Brown and Mark R. Norton, eds.
Devotions from the World of Music, Patrick & Barbara Kavanaugh
Spiritual Moments with the Great Hymns, Evelyn Bence
O Worship the King, Joni Eareckson Tada, John MacArthur, Robert and Bobbie Wolgemuth
Songs in the Night, Henry Gariepy
Joy to the World!, Kenneth W. Osbeck
Amazing Grace, Kenneth W. Osbeck
Hallejuah, What a Savior, Kenneth W. Osbeck
101 Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck
101 More Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck
25 Most Treasured Gospel Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck
Beyond the Sunset, Kenneth W. Osbeck
Amazing Grace: The Story of the Hymn, Linda Granfield
Our God Reigns, Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald
How Sweet the Sound: Stories Inspired by the Hymns We Love, T. Wyatt Watkins

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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