Someone wrote in to ask: Do you know of a *good* recorded version of Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress” that someone could buy? By this I mean it is sung by a large group of people who know why they are singing it, in as neutral a style as possible. I suppose a “neutral style” means one that won’t offend conservative musical tastes, but is still passionate. Since I don’t know of a recording like this, I thought I’d see if anyone else did. Thanks.
Archive | Books, CDs, Websites
Come Christians Join to Sing
Kevin Harnett is a gifted poet in my home church, who works for NASA during the day. He is a multi-gifted godly man, and a good friend. He has written thoughtful poetry for years, and we’ve set a few of his poems to music for use at Covenant Life. We sang his version of the hymn “Come Christians Join to Sing” the opening night of the WorshipoGod06 conference and heard his poem “Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment” in one of the morning sessions. To read these, or any of his other finely written poems, check out his website.
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Announcing…
Waiting for a CD project to be released is a little bit like having a baby. I say “a little bit” because I’ve experienced absolutely nothing like labor pains that every mother goes through. However, we have been working on this for about nine months… If you’re a regular reader of Worship Matters, you know how much I appreciate The Valley of Vision. Edited by Arthur Bennet, The Valley of Vision is a collection of prayers and devotions from various Puritans, including John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, and Isaac Watts. We might assume that people who lived three hundred years ago wouldn’t have many relevant things to say to us about what it means …
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What We All Need
I’ve been a little lax on my posting lately, as I’m in the thick of preparing for the WorshipGod06 conference. I’ll have the privilege of teaching three seminars and one main session there, and appreciate the opportunity to meet and serve those who are coming. In the midst of my preparation, I came across this quote from a book I read a while ago, called The Future of Protestant Worship, by Ronald Byars. “Here is where we put a finger on the weakness of the marketing approach when it comes to matters of faith and worship. It presumes that people can tell you what they’re looking for. Most people can’t.” (p. 23) Later on he writes: “Even …
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WorshipGod Live – Reviewing the Reviews
Last May 50 folks took me up on my offer to receive a WorshipGod Live CD and post a review on their blog. Thanks so much for participating! The comments were overwhelmingly encouraging, but I was even more grateful for the constructive feedback you gave us. Here are some of the comments, along with my thoughts. Most reviewers seems to think the songs were singable and easy to pick up. Dan wrote, “My personal opinion is that a strong song stands on its own even if stripped down to a solo instrument and a single voice…These are all strong songs, in my opinion.” Brian agreed. “No melody was too complex for any congregation to learn …
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New CD – The Apostles Creed
Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. If you don’t know those names, you should. They are the co-writers of In Christ Alone, and as far as I can tell, are among the most gifted songwriters for congregational worship alive today. Stuart has been a friend for a number of years and I met Keith and his wife Kristyn this past year. My church had the joy of hosting all three of them for an event last September. I was challenged and inspired by Keith’s passion to equip the church through theologically rich songs. What makes his focus so impressive is that he doesn’t write the lyrics for the songs he composes with Stuart – he writes the melodies. …
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Sovereign Grace Songbook Now Available
For over 20 years, Sovereign Grace has been seeking to write and publish biblically faithful, Christ-exalting, emotionally moving songs to serve our churches in congregational worship. Songs that help us, as John Piper has said, think truly so that we might feel duly. Songs that enable God’s Word and purposes to be planted deeply in our hearts. About 7 years ago, we published our first songbook. I’m happy to let you know that we’ve finally updated that songbook and released a a two-volume set that contains nearly every song we’ve published for the past twenty one years, including Mark Altrogge’s "I Stand in Awe," "Forever Grateful," …
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Worship and Truth
I’m in the middle of a writing retreat, working on a book for Crossway tentatively entitled Worship Matters. Catchy title, I know. Lord willing, it will be published some time in early 2007. I’m working on a chapter related to worship and the Word. One of the quotes I ran across is from a book entitled Worship At The Next Level: Insight From The Contemporary Voices, edited by Tim A. Dearborn and Scott Coil. Chapter 10 is called “New Approaches to Worship” by Mike Riddell, Mark Pierson, Cathy Kirkpatrick. Here’s the quote: Worship preparation is primarily about providing a context rather than a content. The context being an environment …
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Valley of Vision CD
For those of you who might be interested in a foretaste of the Valley of Vision CD we’re releasing in August, you can listen to a few samples and watch a video trailer here. To download the trailer, don’t worry about choosing the format. Just click on the picture frame. Here’s a portion of what I wrote on the website:Someone might ask, "Why produce a CD inspired by the prayers of a bunch of dead guys?" That’s an easy one. Puritans like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, and Isaac Watts knew their hearts, their Bibles, and their God much better than we do. Many of them wrote down their prayers not to be published, but to assess …
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Reviewing Awesome God Children’s CD Reviews
Near the end of 2005, I offered to send a free copy of the Sovereign Grace children’s CD Awesome God to the first 50 people who would post a review on their blog. THANKS to all of you who responded! We read every one and were grateful for the encouragement and helpful feedback. I wanted to let you hear what others are saying about the CD, partly to give you a better feel for the CD, but more importantly to provoke your thinking in the area of songs for children. Joshua Richie at Deception in the Church picked up on the intentional progression of the songs. “The whole CD seems like one complete message that flows from creation to the culmination …
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Watts on Prayer #5 – Persuading Us to Pray
I’m in the middle of a writing retreat, working on a book for Crossway Publishers. I mentioned a while back that this book was going to cause me cut back on blogging somewhat. However, I wanted to finish this series today so that I could move on to other things next week. Watts’ final chapter is called “Persuasive Arguments to Learn to Pray.” He begins:“It is to little purpose that the nature of prayer is explained, so many rules framed and directions given to teach persons this divine skill of prayer, if they are not persuaded of the necessity and usefulness of it.” (p. 167) In other words, it’s useless talking about it if we …
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Watts on Prayer #4 – The Spirit of Prayer
Over the past few weeks I’ve been sharing summaries of chapters from the book A Guide to Prayer by Isaac Watts. I’ve been using it in my own prayer times, and want to share the benefits. I know I could be addressing many other topics, and will eventually get to them. But if my sense is right, I think that prayer, both public and private, is an area of our relationship with God that we would all love to grow in. In his chapter on The Spirit of Prayer Watts reminds us that all the rules and directions he’s laid out for praying will be ineffective without the aid of God’s Spirit. After providing extensive Scriptural support for the Spirit …
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Watts on Prayer #3 – The Grace of Prayer
I’m continuing my summary of the chapters from Isaac Watts A Guide to Prayer, which is enriching my communication with God. Today, I’m reviewing Chapter 3, The Grace of Prayer. Watts distinguishes the gift and the grace of prayer in this way: “The gift chiefly consists in a readiness of thought appropriate to the various parts of prayer, and a facility of expressing those thoughts in speaking to God. The grace consists in the inward workings of the heart and conscience toward God and religion.” In other words, the grace of prayer refers to the life, affection, sincerity, and vigor that characterize our praying. It stems from an awareness …
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Watts on Prayer #2 – The Gift of Prayer
Yesterday I shared my burden for giving more attention to the way we pray, both publicly and privately. This is an area I very much want to grow in. For that reason I picked up Isaac Watts’ A Guide to Prayer. I’ve been so encouraged by it, I wanted to give you a synopsis of the chapters to motivate you in your own pursuit of a rich prayer life. Today, I’m looking at Chapter 2, The Gift of Prayer. Watts defines the gift of prayer as: “An ability to suit our thoughts to all the various parts and designs of this duty, and a readiness to express those thoughts before God in the fittest manner to profit our own souls as well as the souls …
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Watts on Prayer
While I was in India, I finished reading A Guide to Prayer, by the well known hymn writer, Isaac Watts. I was impressed by his humble, practical, and biblical approach to this topic that is more often discussed than done. I’ve asked Mark Mullery to address the issue of praying publicly at this year’s WorshipGod06 conference. I think we often don’t realize what a significant means of edification, training, and grace public prayer can be for the people we serve. Of course, it might be difficult to imagine when our prayers often sound something like this: Father God, we just come before you today, Lord, to say we love you, Jesus, and Spirit, …