While many "hymn lead sheet/fake books" can be found, some seem tempting until you actually have to use it and realize it weighs 75 pounds. Others promise to be the "be all end all" of hymnals, until you are left scratching your head at certain hymn choices, verses, and theology. Others try to preserve every single harmonization (2,965 chord changes per hymn) or strip away all chord changes until what's left is a lifeless clump of G major.

I've sought to provide a simplified lead sheet style hymnal that was written "in real life." This lead sheet collection contains hymns that are arranged over a 15 year period by a working church musician in the trenches. As a guitar and piano player, who led worship from both equally, I needed version of these hymns that worked well on both. I needed arrangements that were true to the feel of the original hymn, accessable to beginner musicians, but left room for advanced studio players to dig in as well.

This hymnal is geared toward those who want rich theology and music without being indulgent in needless complexity. Like the Bible itself, the hymns and verses chosen speak to the transcendent and the immanent, the surface and the depths, the inner and the outer.