One of the most influential hymn collections of the second half of the 20th century was a small red book called 20th Century Folk Hymnal.

So well did people know its contents that they knew exactly which hymn to sing simply by the mention of the number. 'Let's sing No 35' someone would say, and all present would know that was Make me a channel of your peace .

An enormous number of the 100 hymns in that collection are now in the everyday repertoire of every school and parish.

So it is with confidence that we have published that famous book's suc­cessor - a collection of 100 new and recent songs, hymns and chants, many of which we con­fi­dently predict will be in tomor­row's hymn books - with just one change in the title: 20th becomes 21st - the 21st Century Folk Hymnal.