We wish to take very seriously the admonitions of the apostle Pauls to: “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph. 5:19) and “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God“ (Col. 3:16) ESV.
We wish to do this not just in singing acapella - (from the Latin meaning, in style or way of the church), but in content as well, paying close attention to the first word in the listing: psalms. Most modern hymnals will have only 3 to 5 psalms in them (Ps. 23, often in two versions, Ps. 100, the Old Hundreth, and Ps 148, Let Them Praises Give Jehovah, which some do not even realize is a psalm. A couple of recent Hymnals (Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Sumphoma and Hymns for Worship by Stevens & Shepherd) make some attempt to have more.
For us as English speakers, this seems best and most easily accomplished by singing metrical psalms to familiar tunes.
We have two pages that we are developing to help with congregational singing. First: A page of metrical psalms, or psalm portions, set to familiar or other hymn tunes. These are all public domain and fully shareable. Second: Additional resources on metrical psalms such as historical information and old psalters that are now in the public domain.