Hymn Workouts: 100 Exercises to Set Your Heart Ablaze

by Joe Barnard

Spiritual fitness for Christians whose growth has stagnated Many of us feel like our spiritual growth has stalled. Our routines have hardened into ruts. Around us, we see other Christians with the same struggles and we start to think that treading water is the basic rhythm of the Christian life. Often the problem of stagnating faith is down to one simple fact – we all have a bias towards ease. Our spiritual routines involve passively reading our Bibles, not lingering long enough to comprehend or retain what was read, and a few distracted minutes spent in prayer.   This book of spiritual workouts is meant to push complacent souls back out into the space of exertion and discovery. It will engage and sharpen the faculties of the mind – memory, imagination, intellect, conscience and will.   Each workout, thematically grouped, features a hymn, richly steeped in scripture. There is a Bible passage to read, a list of the scripture references made in the hymn, and three reflection questions to meditate on.   The 100 exercises are grouped into these  

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2022

About the author

I am the founder and director of Cross Training Ministries, a men's discipleship program. For eight years I pastored a church in the Scottish Highlands before returning to my hometown of Covington, Louisiana (Walker Percy's former residence, for fiction lovers). My first book has just been released with Christian Focus Publications: The Way Forward: a Road-map of Spiritual Growth for Men in the 21st Century. I am married to Anna, and we have four children. For more information about Cross Training Ministries, visit www.xtrainingministries.com.

Reviews

[Tim Sanduleac · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much gold in this little book.

The author takes the common structure of a systematic and condenses it into 100 readings, all of which are texts out of the great tradition of English hymnody. Each hymn comes with a main Scripture reading, as well as dozens of readings for individual lines of each stanza. Each hymn is also followed by three reflection questions.

This is ideal to use as a devotional (though the author states he doesn’t like the term). One can learn so much about our Holy God through Scripture coupled with hymns, and it also gives a chance to reflect upon the content of hymns slower and more thoroughly than when singing them. Reading this, I cannot help but realize that English hymnody is a never-ending gold mine for ones edification.

Highly recommend this to anyone, really.