Rather than a sermon Ruth posed the question 'Why do we sing hymns.' The people round the tables came up with the reasons they could think of, and then these were written on a flip board and compared with the list Ruth had devised. Reasons included:
- Participation (we enjoy singing together and harmonising as many voices)
- A means of devotion / to praise God
- Memorable (and make up memories)
- Emotion (have different moods)
- Tunes complement and reinforce the words
- Reinforce the message( Ruth said the first hymn she usually chooses is the one after the sermon to echo the message)
- Tradition (hymns in our hymn book date from all ages of Christendom and some are still being written)
- ...