Bring your own book! (long)

[Geek King]

Still better than the funerals at my church used to be. They were so music-oriented at the time, we referred to them as Hymms & Hearse.

[PepperElf]

i think that makes sense - i'm catholic
for us it's a parish, and all the parishes together make up the diocese. (tho the local diocese here is over a hundred parishes, and my own parish is actually two combined).

though music-wise we don't really have a separate book for children, we just use the same hymnal (along with the yearly missalette) , though for special events they'll print up a little pamphlet.

[jedimaster91]

I think baptisms at the stake level are the norm now. Hubby says its church policy.

If it is, my stake missed the memo. Although, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if the stake did know about it and my ward wasn't told, but when one is married to the bishop and is good buddies with someone on the High Council, one tends to find out these things before everyone else. Perhaps this is more of a western thing? I'm in Kentucky, so we do things a bit differently out here.

I remember once our choir director wanted to sing a Primary song but we couldn't find a book. Anywhere. Even the Primary's copy was missing. Which is sad because I love the Primary songs. I miss singing them.

[Aut]

If it is, my stake missed the memo. Although, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if the stake did know about it and my ward wasn't told, but when one is married to the bishop and is good buddies with someone on the High Council, one tends to find out these things before everyone else. Perhaps this is more of a western thing? I'm in Kentucky, so we do things a bit differently out here.

I remember once our choir director wanted to sing a Primary song but we couldn't find a book. Anywhere. Even the Primary's copy was missing. Which is sad because I love the Primary songs. I miss singing them.

Yeah, I'm not so sure how that goes because I've been hearing that more and more stakes are implementing it, but I still hear of other stakes that don't do it that way. So I asked the man and that's what he said.

[RetailWorkhorse]

Stake? Stake stake stake steak....oooooo....now I'm hungry.

[Kogarashi]

Generally, no outside music is allowed and special music numbers have to be approved.

After my stint as the music director for the ward, I've found that the musical numbers are encouraged to be church music (Hymns, Children's Songbook, etc.), but not required to, so long as it's approved by the bishop. Our bishop, for instance, was all for other appropriately religous songs (including several spirituals, thanks in part to our large black population), but he preferred to have the musical numbers only in languages spoken by the majority of the congregation (limiting it to English and Spanish).

I think baptisms at the stake level are the norm now. Hubby says its church policy.

I heard something like that recently, but here in CT we still do it on the ward level. I think it's, again, encouraged but not required, but I'll have to ask my husband about that.

An idea: Maybe you could put a book cover on your book and it would deter others from thinking it was stake property.

I second this idea. If you ever find your mom's copy again, do the same.

Also, since this is a regular occurrence and the church is quite lenient with photocopying the songs for things like baptisms, why not do what they do for stake conference and have a paper or two printed with photocopies of the selected songs? That way not only would the chorister have the music, but so could everyone attending the baptism. I know from experience at some of our baptisms that not all the adults know the songs from the Children's Songbook. Some just don't remember them from way back when they were in Primary (like me), and others joined the church when they were older and never got the chance to learn them. So photocopies could help everyone.

I lucked out when I was a pianist in the ward. My copy of the Hymnbook was a chorister copy, so the cover was blue instead of green and it was spiralbound to stay open easier. Much harder to mistake for the church's copy.