In November, I will be teaching a series called “Singing Theology.” We will be talking quite a bit about music and worship. Over the years, my thinking on this issue has swung back and forth a bit. On Sunday, our congregation sang people’s favorite hymns. Generally, we worship using music from many different ages. We… Read More »
The Content of Worship
Recently, someone showed me a “new worship song”. They were so excited about the way it made them feel closer to God. The “new worship song” opened with a pretty, melodic piano piece and was then followed by a single phrase – something like “I want to see you” – repeated five or six times… Read More »
The Blues
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWqA1Z4lPHw] When I was learning the guitar, my dad had a whole bunch of blues tablature books. There were some modern players like Jeff Beck and Jerry Garcia, but most of his books were about acoustic, finger style blues. I cut my teeth on stuff like “Black Snake Moan” by Lemon Jefferson and old, old… Read More »
Music Flashback
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FqpJlqqvjQ] This is from November 2010, right before the merger. It is interesting in a couple of ways – not just how the stage and band has been shuffled and reformed but also the congregation that is gathered (although we can only see the backs of people’s heads). I love our musicians and cannot wait… Read More »
Raise Your Voices
Worth watching and considering. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqVWx-rXCkI&sns=em]
Guide to Worship Gestures
Kurt Willems shared this from Tim Hawkins. It made me laugh.
Psalms in Worship
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtklfgWES9Y] Yesterday, the Acoustic Gurus presented a song I wrote using Psalm 1 for lyrics. If you have a songbook with 150 different lyrics that you claim is inspired by God, why do you sing songs by less inspired authors? Like it or hate it, I think our primary source material for music should be… Read More »
