Weekly check-in! What hymns did/will your ward sing in sacrament meeting this week? The third batch has had a pretty cold reception so far; will it warm up this week?

About half of wards sing a Christmas opening hymn, either no intermediate hymn or some other hymn as the intermediate hymn, and close with a New Years hymn.

The least common pattern is to go New Years, Christmas, New Years.

As far as which hymns are sung, here’s what historically has been the ranking for most common hymns the Sunday after Christmas.

The further from Christmas the Sunday after is, the less likely you’ll sing Christmas hymns. Excluding sacrament hymns, I’ve found that on the 29th of December about half of hymns are still Christmas hymns, a quarter are New Years, and a quarter are others.

An update to congregational hymns this Christmas season so far! 95% of wards are singing 2+ Christmas hymns each week. Most wards have sung six or more Christmas hymns. And "What Child Is This" is the 7th most popular hymn so far!

hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/christ...

Actually, there was a huge spike in that one last week! Of the wards that sang new hymns, half of them sang it. hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/new_hy...

I have a dedicated post analyzing the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Spoiler: Joy to the World (#201) and Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful (#202) historically have had a huge spike on December 1st! hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/week-a...

A little later this week because of Thanksgiving, but here's how new hymns were incorporated into sacrament meetings last Sunday. Unsurprisingly, there's a bit of a dip because of the holiday.

hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/new_hy...

Around 20% of wards (that I have data from) sang I Believe in Christ (#134) last Sunday, most likely because it's mentioned in this week's Come, Follow Me lesson. As it turns out, hymns mentioned in Come, Follow Me see a huge spike in popularity that week.

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The numbers are in! 47% of wards sang at least one new hymn last Sunday. Will we hit 50% before the holidays?

hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/new_hy...

Unsurprisingly, Amazing Grace (#1010) is the most popular from the second batch and about a third of wards have sung it so far. A distant second is My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (#1014). I've only seen Come, Lord Jesus (#1018) being sung a couple times.

As for the second batch of new hymns, the reception was lukewarm at first, but now that we're a few weeks in, I'm seeing as many wards singing from the second batch as the first batch. More wards are singing new hymns than ever before.

hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/new_hy...

Each hymn has its own patterns for whether they're sung as opening, sacrament, intermediate, or closing hymns. The new hymns are all pretty evenly split between the three non-sacrament slots. Interestingly, Gethsemane (#1009) was somewhat evenly split between all four slots.

Of the wards that sang new hymns on the first week, two thirds of those sang Come Thou Found (#1001). Since then, it has waned a little bit, and other hymns got more popular. For example, His Eye Is On the Sparrow (#1005) saw a jump in popularity after about two months.

It's probably no surprise that the most common new hymn is Come Thou Found (#1001) and most wards have sung it. Some have sung it multiple times. It Is Well with My Soul (#1003) was next with an estimated two-thirds of wards having sung it already. The least common was Think a Sacred Song (#1006).

A typical rollout rate was about one new hymn every three weeks. Here's a plot showing how many new hymns wards sang depending on how much data I have from them. hymnstats.joeystanley.com/posts/new_hy...

The first batch of hymns was incorporated quickly in sacrament meetings. On any given Sunday, about 30% of wards sang one new hymn. About 5% sang two or more new hymns.
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