Historian John Dickson takes worship leaders inside The First Hymn Project, the quest to resurrect the earliest known Christian hymn with surviving musical notation, preserved on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786. We’ll trace the Bible’s approach to praise as mission before turning to this ancient hymn’s discovery in Egypt, what the hymn tells us about praise and mission in early Christianity, and how historians and musicians collaborated to bring the song back to life. We’ll consider what this 1,800-year-old song reveals about early Christian worship and how those insights can shape our songwriting, liturgy, and congregational practice today.
