The Canaan Hymns

Canaan Hymns is a collection of Chinese hymns composed by Lü Xiaomin, born in a village of parents who are farmers. She has little education and has not studied music. She proved to be a prolific song writer after starting to write hymns in 1990. She acknowledges she has been given this gift by God. As of February 2016, she has written 1,682 Canaan hymns, many of them sung all over China and even around the world where Chinese people gather to worship.

CANAAN HYMNS | Traditional Chinese 迦南詩選 | Simplified Chinese 迦南诗选

Canaan Hymns or Songs of Canaan (Chinese: 迦南诗选; pinyin: Jiānán Shīxuǎn) is a collection of Chinese hymns composed by Lü Xiaomin, a Christian convert peasant woman with no musical education. She proved to be a prolific song writer after starting to write hymns in 1990. As of February 2016, she has written 1,682 Canaan hymns. Xiaomin’s theologicaly background is in Pentecostalism and the local churches movement, and the hymns reflect themes of Christology, pneumatology and eschatology against the backdrop of Chinese political realities.

Canaan hymns are one of the most successful underground Christian publication in China. They are used by many Protestant churches in the country. Both Chinese house churches and churches of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement use them, despite the latter having criticized the hymns through its official channels. The Chinese government has targeted censorship efforts on the distributors of the hymnal. Overseas Chinese communities and Taiwanese churches use the hymnal, too.

Even people with little education can learn the hymns, which are short and musically simple, usually rhymed, and resemble Chinese folk songs. This has contributed to their popularity. The can also be sung without instruments. Their Chinese elements and Confucian undertones make them more acceptable than foreign hymnals to Chinese worshipers. There is a strong emphasis on the communal aspects of the Christian church. Some hymns are patriotic.

Source Wikipedia:^[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan_Hymns