John Newton: Spirituality as Composition

From a letter to Mr. B—-, 6 November 1777:

MY DEAR SIR–You say you are more disposed to cry miserere than hallelujah. Why not both together? When the treble is praise, and heart humiliation for the bass, the melody is pleasant and the harmony good. However, if not both together, we must have them alternately; [...]

CD Recording Session: The Photo Gallery

Those of you who have been following me for a while have probably heard that I’ve been working on a brand-new CD recording of worship songs and hymns I’ve written over the past several years. I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while, especially since getting married and realizing how wonderful Carrie’s [...]

Practical Tips for Worship Leading

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/handjes/1800214770/

Originally published August 2006. These ideas are in a rough and unpolished form. I wrote them down one evening while they were in my mind for some reason, and since then several people have told me this was very helpful in their own work in worship music. This is still very much how I [...]

Changing a Church Service: I’ve Got a Little List

Photo Credit:
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The always engaging SirNickDon recently posed an interesting question about church: “If your job was to remove five minutes from your Sunday-morning church service, what would you cut out?” (He voted to remove the “special” music, calculating precisely how many man-hours had been wasted watching someone do sign language to “I Can Only Imagine.” In [...]

Bless Thou Jehovah (R. A. Torrey)

R. A. Torrey was a 19th-century evangelist known for his commitment to the Word of God and the message of the Gospel. As a pastor, evangelist, teacher, author, and scholar, he has an enduring impact even today. Many of his books are regarded as classics (such as the splendidly simple How to Pray), and institutions [...]