The following is a distillation of several years of thinking about the role of music education in the church. There are a number of assertions throughout this article which should be interpreted as policies in nascent form rather than universal mandates for other...
The following is an appeal to my believing friends who are poets, composers, lyricists, and various iterations of wordsmiths. Watts’ Burden My opening volley (and I’ll need only one) is an excerpt from the preface of Isaac Watts’ Divine and Moral...
Several folks have asked for a copy of our church’s guidelines for choosing wedding music. If you find the following helpful, feel free to use and adapt it to suit your ministry. _______________ The wedding ceremony is a display of the goodness of God and the...
I often get asked by fellow church musicians how to think through what to say before, between, and after songs in corporate worship. It’s not a minor question. As leaders, we have the responsibility to intentionally point people to truth and to stir them to...
Sifting, sorting, choosing If you’re a church music minister, there’s a lot out there to choose from. It’s overwhelming, in fact. Strike out the songs with weak theology or inaccessible music, and it’s still overwhelming. Since the Reformation,...
Technology and tradition We love hymns. You can read more about that here. When we meet together as a church family, we sing hymns – lots of them. Some are old, some are new, but all are filled with truths about the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ....
