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Glorious Christ – New Song from a New Album

By on March 29, 2012 in —Sovereign Grace Music, —Worship and Christ, Videos

On April 10 we’ll be releasing our next album, From Age to Age, a collection of 14 new hymns for the church. We call them “hymns” because either they were based on or inspired by hymns of the past, or because the lyrics adhere to a metrical pattern in the verses. The songs also contain a theological richness that characterize most hymns. One song I wrote for the album is called Glorious Christ. I unashamedly got the idea for the song from Chris Tomlin’s How Great is Our God, which seems to be sung throughout the world. I love how Chris’ song focuses on God’s character and works then draws out the appropriate response of magnifying the Lord …

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Matt Searles – Now and Not Yet

By on March 22, 2012 in —Music Reviews, —Worship and the Church

The worship song outpouring in the last two decades has resulted in thousands of new songs for the church to sing. Many have been expressions of praise, thanksgiving, love, and commitment to God. Others intentionally seek to help us engage directly with God’s Word to us. That’s one of the purposes of music Paul refers to in Colossians 3:16 when he says that we’re to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. I was encouraged a while back to come across an album by Matt Searles, a 32 year old assistant pastor at Dundonald Church in Wimbledon, London. The album is called Now and Not Yet – Acoustic …

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What I Learned from Aristotle about Leading Congregational Worship

By on March 15, 2012 in —Emotions and Worship, —Leading a Congregation

Specifically, I haven’t learned anything from Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) about leading congregational worship that I didn’t learn first in Scripture. But in his day, Aristotle sought to help speakers be more persuasive by identifying three crucial areas to keep in mind. He called them logos, ethos, and pathos. Briefly, logos is seeking to persuade through truth. Aristotle was concerned that the speakers of his day, the sophists, focused too much on flowery language and not enough on actual content. Ethos has to do with the character of the person speaking. Aristotle recognized that listeners tend to be influenced most by people …

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Show Us Christ – Video from The Gathering

By on February 7, 2012 in —Free Sheet Music, —Sovereign Grace Music, —Worship and Christ, —Worship and Scripture, —WorshipGod Conferences, Videos

When we were putting together the songs for The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11, we ended up having not one, but two songs that served as a “prayer for illumination.” One is Your Words of Life, written by Pat & Joel Sczebel. The other is Show us Christ, which I co-wrote with Doug Plank. Show Us Christ reminds us that the purpose of preaching God’s Word is not simply to give insights for living, impress people with our knowledge of Greek, or to tell people they need to try harder. The primary goal is to display the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). The written and preached Word is meant to point us to the riches of …

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Have Mercy on Me – Video from The Gathering

By on January 24, 2012 in —Free Sheet Music, —Liturgy, —Sovereign Grace Music, —WorshipGod Conferences

The first song I heard that I thought would be on our most recent album, The Gathering, was Have Mercy on Me. Co-written by Dale Bischof and Pat Sczebel, it combines grief over sin with an assurance of God’s mercy in Christ. Even though as Christians all our sins are completely forgiven (Col. 2:13), we can continue to battle either ongoing condemnation or arrogant presumption. The first results in an attitude that binds us, discourages us, and makes us fearful of approaching God. The second equally dangerous mindset supposes that because our sins have been paid for by Christ’s substitutionary death, we don’t have to think about them any more. …

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Putting Songs Together – Video & Audio from WorshipGod11

By on January 20, 2012 in —Choosing Songs, —Sovereign Grace Music, —WorshipGod Conferences

At WorshipGod11 I presented this seminar I simply called “Putting Songs Together.” It was an attempt to give people a better grid for choosing what songs to sing in a gathering. Back in 2004 I gave a similar seminar, Choosing Songs Wisely, and thought it was time to update my thoughts on the topic. Despite the common liturgy of a music time followed by a preaching time, God hasn’t been ultra-clear about how we’re to use music in our meetings. We can include songs in various ways. They can be sung together consecutively, spread throughout the meeting, or at the beginning and end. In this seminar I try to allow for different practices, but …

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David Peterson on Revelation and the Songs We Sing

By on January 20, 2012 in —Choosing Songs, —Defining Terms

My top recommended book on a biblical theology of worship is David Peterson’s Engaging with God. If you’re responsible for leading in your church, either as a pastor or a musician, I think you’ll serve people more faithfully and biblically if you read it. I go through it every year with my interns and never fail to come away from our discussion times with fresh understanding and inspiration for leading corporate worship. Peterson focuses on worship as it’s understood in the Old Testament, the gospels, and various epistles. The chapters on Hebrews and Revelation by themselves are worth the price of the book. This past Wednesday we were discussing …

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As You Go – The Evolution of a Song

By on January 12, 2012 in —Free Sheet Music, —Songwriting, —Sovereign Grace Music, —WorshipGod Conferences

Here’s our latest video from The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11. As You Go was written by Mark Altrogge, who has been writing songs for Sovereign Grace Music since the early 1980s. That’s a long time. It amazes me how he continues to write such theologically rich, relevant, singable songs. What you may not know is that even with the decades of experience Mark has, he is one of the easiest people to work with when it comes to suggesting changes to his songs. Rather than giving you a detailed explanation of why he wrote what he did, or sharing 5 reasons why no alternative could possibly be better, he typically gets back in less than …

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The Piano in Contemporary Worship, Part 3

By on January 7, 2012 in —Music Theory, —Musicians & Vocalists, —WorshipGod Conferences

Last month I posted two sessions from the pre-conference workshop I taught at WorshipGod11 on the Piano in Contemporary Worship (Part 1 and Part 2). We finally finished editing the third session. This one took a little more time to edit because people were regularly walking past the window of the door in the video, which is a bit distracting. My good friend Dave Mackenzie performed his video wizardry and edited the movement out. In this session I deal with many of the specific questions I’ve been asked over the years. Those include: chord coloring inversions playing hymns developing your chord vocabulary introductions transitions …

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What Goes On at a Sovereign Grace Songwriting Retreat?

By on January 6, 2012 in —Songwriting, —Sovereign Grace Music

We had our 10th songwriter retreat this past October. In a previous post I shared some details from our 2010 retreat. Since a couple guys have asked me about these recently, here’s a little more info. Sovereign Grace is a family of over 90 churches. We’ve been producing albums since around 1984. At first, we were simply getting out songs that Mark Altrogge was writing. Songs like “I Have a Destiny,” “In My Generation,” and “You Sat Down.” We started producing “Song Service Tapes” that went to Sovereign Grace churches and anyone else who was interested. Most of them were recorded in Steve and Vikki Cook’s bedroom. (thank you, Vikki…) It …

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Behold Our God (with orchestra)

By on January 5, 2012 in —Sovereign Grace Music, Videos

A while back I held a contest asking people to send us their arrangements of songs from the Sovereign Grace album, King of Grace. Joshua Spacht won the contest with his version of Behold the Lamb. He recently sent me a version of another Sovereign Grace song, Behold our God, from Risen, written by Jonathan, Ryan, and Meghan Baird, and Stephen Altrogge. Joshua’s church sang it as part of their Christmas service. While God doesn’t need orchestras, choirs, and great arrangements to glorify his name, he can certainly use them to communicate grandeur, awe, majesty, and more. I think that’s what Joshua and his musicians accomplished through his …

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The Gathering is Coming to Southern California Jan. 28

By on January 4, 2012 in —Choosing Songs, —Musicians & Vocalists, —Other Events, —Training a Team, —Worship and Christ, —WorshipGod Conferences

This past August we recorded The Gathering: Live from WorshipGod11. It’s a collection of 15 songs that progressively tell the story of the gospel and our response to it. From my perspective, it’s one of the best albums we’ve done to date, both in terms of song content and creative musicianship. I’m happy to announce that we’ll be doing it all over again (at least singing the songs) in Orange County, CA on Saturday, January 28. A few of my good friends from California (Ryan and Jonathan Baird, and Eric Turbedsky, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Orange County) emailed me about putting together an event that combined teaching in the afternoon …

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Resources for Your Worship Team from WorshipGod11: Instruments, General, Children

By on January 4, 2012 in —Children, —Free Messages, —Leading a Team, —Musicians & Vocalists, —WorshipGod Conferences

Yesterday, I posted some of the workshops from WorshipGod11 for leaders, songwriters, and tech teams. Here are a few more that focus on instrumentalists, leading kids to worship Christ, dealing with burnout, and the leader’s prayer life. Donald Whitney shared on simplifying your spiritual life and using Scripture as a basis for your prayers. There’s also a seminar for women taught by my wife that addresses facing every season of life with faith. Enjoy. Bass, Drums, Guitar Strengthening the Drum/Bass Connection, PT1 – Ryan Foglesong and David Zimmer (outline) The foundation of the worship team is the rhythm section composed of the drummer and …

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Resources for Your Worship Team from WorshipGod11: Leading, Songwriting, Tech

By on January 3, 2012 in —Choosing Songs, —Creativity, —Free Messages, —Leading a Congregation, —Music Theory, —Songwriting, —Sound and Tech, —Spiritual Gifts, —Training a Team, —Worship and Culture, —Worship and the Spirit, —WorshipGod Conferences

Last August at WorshipGod11 we offered 40 seminars for pastors, musicians, leaders, vocalists, instrumentalists, and tech teams. Today and tomorrow I’m posting the descriptions of a few that might serve you and your team in the coming year. Right clicking on the title will download the MP3, and of course, right clicking on the outline will get you the…outline. Leading Putting Songs Together – Bob Kauflin (outline) Why do you choose the songs you do? What factors go into deciding whether one song is better to use than another? What’s the difference between lyrical flow and musical flow? How can we use songs to effectively care for people’s …

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Now Why This Fear – Video from WorshipGod11

By on December 20, 2011 in —Free Sheet Music, —Sovereign Grace Music, —WorshipGod Conferences, Videos

One of my favorite songs from our most recent album, The Gathering,  is Now Why This Fear. Doug Plank adapted the words from the hymn “Now When This Fear and Unbelief” by Augustus Toplady. Toplady (1740-1778) was a strong, if sometimes contentious, defender of Calvinism. More importantly, he tirelessly preached the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work for our sins. This hymn, like Rock of Ages, encourages believers to rest completely in the finished work of Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. It’s the news that never grows old. I asked Doug Plank to share a few thoughts on the how he came to update Toplady’s hymn. “From Whence this …

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