I don’t know Terry Stauffer personally, but he attended the Together for the Gospel conference in 2006 and blogged on a hymn we sang there, How Sweet and Aweful is the Place. He’s a pastor in Alberta, Canada. That was all I knew. Until yesterday. Yesterday, someone left a comment on the post where I referenced Terry and passed on some very sad news. Emily Stauffer, Terry’s daughter, was murdered this past Saturday afternoon while taking a walk. She was 14 years old. Providentially, Terry has been studying the book of Job, and recently wrote a post on the Sovereign Grace CD, Come Weary Saints, a CD we put together for those going through …
Archive | Worship in the Church
Posts regarding the direct practice of worship in the context of the local church.
WorshipGod08 Seminars Now Available
Over at the Sovereign Grace website, we’ve finally posted 29 WorshipGod08 seminars for you to listen to or download for free. . . . Here’s the list: Band on the Run (Bob Kauflin) Building Bridges: Pastors and Worship Leaders (Bob Kauflin) Caring for Your Sound System (Darryl Wenger) Copyright Law and Church Music: The Eight Keys (Paul Herman) Drumming for Worshipers (Jordan Kauflin) Electric Guitar Workshop (Dave Campbell) Foundations for Bass Players (Don Nalle) Foundations for Keyboardists (Jon Payne) Growing Your Team for the Glory of God (Jon Payne) In-Ear Monitors (Doug Gould) Leading and Caring for …
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Reflections on the Christian Songwriter’s Retreat
Last week I spent four days in beautiful Mt. Hermon, CA, near San Jose. I had the joy of participating in a Christian Songwriter’s Retreat sponsored by the Mt. Hermon Retreat Center. About 300 folks came to learn how to develop their heart and craft as Christian song writers. The speakers/musicians included Paul Baloche, Joy Williams, Mia Fieldes, Charlie Peacok, Don Moen, Derek Webb, Sara Groves, Phil Wickham, and yours truly. I really enjoyed the format. There were morning and evening sessions with seminars during the day. The main sessions started with about 25 minutes of singing, followed by a 30 minute teaching. I was the speaker in the …
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Encouraging Expressiveness in Worship When It’s Not “Cool”
This is the second clip from an hour plus interview that Tim Smith did with me when I was in Seattle last November. He’s asking me about an issue they’ve faced at Mars Hill Church, but one that I’m sure is common to many churches. How do you motivate people to physically express affection for God when they’re singing his praise, when their default attitude on hearing music is passivity and reservation? How do you keep from manipulating or commanding certain responses that are appropriate to biblical corporate worship? If you want to read more, I did a series on physical expressiveness a while back. You can find Part 1 here. …
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Are Hymns Too Weighty To Take In?
A Worship Matters reader sent me this question: With the hymns being so rich in lyrical content and theological ideas, there are often times where we can get to the end of the hymn and think “Well, what was all that about?” let alone getting to a point of engaging our hearts in response to the truth. From your experience, what could we do in terms of leading and arranging hymns with weighty (not a negative term) theological and lyrical content to allow room and time for people to engage God in meaningful worship through the song? Before I answer this, let me share a few thoughts on words in corporate worship. One of the primary purposes …
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Reflections on Leading Worship at Together for the Gospel
If you just read the comments on my last Together for the Gospel post, you might be tempted to think that things went flawlessly. Not the case. Practically every time I lead I learn something new about what I’m doing, even though I’ve been leading worship for over 30 years now. I pray that I’m always learning something. Here are some of the things I learned, put into practice, or remembered this year. You can experience and express strong emotions for God while singing hymns. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say that hymns are dry, academic, lyrically dense, and inappropriate for “passionate worship.” That may be true in some …
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Song List for Together for the Gospel Conference
This past week I had the privilege of leading worship in song for the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Kentucky. What a joy it was to lead over 5000 attendees, mostly pastors, in worshiping our great Redeemer for his matchless work of redemption. They came from a variety of denominations and churches, mostly from the United States, but from as far away as Australia and India. (I have a story about the pastor from India at the end of this post) A number of people asked me for the song list and lyrics to the songs we sang. Most of the hymns we sang were public domain, but a few were Sovereign Grace Music and songs by Stuart …
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There Still is Room – Brian Oaks CD, Only $5
I have a friend, Brian Oaks, whom I’ve only met by e-mail. He’s a guitarist now living in Nashville who made an indie CD a while back called There Still is Room. It’s a collection of redone hymns that I’ve really enjoyed. Great lyrics, nice guitar work and vocals. Brian was asking me what to do with the CDs sitting around in his house and I suggested that he offer them at a discount and I’d let people know about it. So he’s offering his CD for 5 bucks, including domestic shipping. These are the songs: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing My Faith Has Found a Resting Place The Savior Calls At the Name of Jesus Nothing but the Blood Great …
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Sunday Morning Video #3
The past two days I’ve posted videos from a recent Sunday morning at Covenant Life. The first one is here, the second one is here. These aren’t examples of someone doing everything right. Hardly. They just contain examples of a lot of the things I’ve written about at Worship Matters. Today I’m posting an example of spontaneity. Being “reformed charismatics,” we value the sufficiency, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture as well as the active presence of the Holy Spirit through the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Cor. 14 and elsewhere. During the fourth song that Sunday, Lost in Wonder, two pastors came up and shared prophetic impressions from …
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Sunday Morning Video #2
Yesterday I posted a video of something I shared on a recent Sunday morning as I was leading. It was the introduction to the song “Come Christians Join to Sing.” It’s a traditional hymn that we’ve updated musically and lyrically. Kevin Hartnett, a member of my church, wrote a third verse that highlights the main reason we can sing — Jesus has died for our sins in our place and risen from the dead. Here’s the verse he added: Come praise the risen Lamb, Alleluia! Amen! He died to ransom man Alleluia! Amen! On that triumphant day He took our sins away! Death could not bid him stay Alleluia! Amen! You can download a copy of the guitar chart …
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Sunday Morning Video #1
For today and the next two days I’m going to be posting some videos from a recent Sunday morning at my home church. I know that sharing principles is different from actually seeing what takes place, and a number of people told me how helpful it was the last time I posted the audio from one of our Sunday meetings. The order of songs that morning was: How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin) Haven’t You Been Good (Steve Earl) Come Christians Join to Sing (Trad. hymn, vs. 3 by Kevin Hartnett) Lost in Wonder (Martyn Layzell) Speak O Lord (Keith Getty & Stuart Townend) We sang the first two songs as a medley. We had to do the first …
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Does It Matter Who Writes the Songs We Sing?
Ty sent in this question: A lot of people at our church like the song “Your Grace Is Enough” which I think was co-written by Matt Maher and Chris Tomlin. I did some research on Matt Maher and found that he is a well-know Catholic artist. There are some who would say that since the song was written by somebody who is Catholic that it shouldn’t be sung. How should we think through something like this? Before I share my thoughts, I wanted to address the question, “Is it possible to be a genuine Christian and a Roman Catholic at the same time?” I think so, despite numerous doctrines of the Catholic church that conflict with Scripture, such …
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For Music
A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, Greg Gilbert, posted a blog on the 9Marks site called Against Music. The title was more an attention grabber than a statement of Greg’s attitude toward music in general. He was cautioning Christians against becoming spiritually dependent on music in their relationship with God. He wrote: The bottom line, I suppose, is that it would do every Christian well to do some honest heart-searching about what makes them feel “close to God.” Can you feel close to God just by reading or saying the words, “In Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”? Would you be able …
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New Song — Jesus Died for Me
Glorify is a live recording from Metro Life Church, one of the Sovereign Grace churches in Orlando, FL. I posted on it briefly a while back. The CD has a number of great songs, but I wanted to focus on one we taught our church this past Sunday, Jesus Died for Me. The original lyrics were written by William Hiley Bathburst, but the music and additional words are by Steve and Vikki Cook. The bridge that the Cooks added soars musically and reminds us that we owe everything to the One who redeemed us from the punishment we deserved and reconciled us to God. It’s a beautiful song in a varying time signature, that uses a penny whistle on the turnaround. …
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It Is Not Death to Die
Yesterday I led a couple songs during the funeral of Mark Walker, a dear friend from a church I used to be a pastor at years ago. It was one of the most joyful memorial services I’ve been to, due largely to the glowing countenance of Marks’ widow, Marie. Everyone who honored Mark also took time to honor Marie for her joy, faithfulness, servant heart, and trust in God. She cared for Mark around the clock for the last two years as he tried to make it through a second liver transplant. Mark’s fight is finally over. He’s rejoicing with his Savior. At the funeral, I had the privilege of singing a song called It Is Not Death to Die. I wrote it a …