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Review of God’s Lyrics by Douglas Sean O’Donnell

By on October 14, 2010 in —Choosing Songs, —Songwriting

A few weeks ago I finished God’s Lyrics: Rediscovering Worship Through Old Testament Songs. O’Donnell “draws out the historical, exegetical, and theological significance of the songs of Moses, Deborah, Hannah, David, and Habakkuk. He then shows, in the light of the person and work of Jesus Christ, how the lyrics of God’s Word apply to contemporary congregational singing.” (from the back cover) In other words, he’s seeking to answer the question, “What can Old Testament songs teach us about the songs we use for corporate worship today?” His answer? A lot. O’Donnell chose this method for two reasons. First, these songs provide “unique poetic …

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The Functional Limits of Creativity: How Innovative Can We Be with the Gospel?

By on October 8, 2010 in —Creativity, —Worship and Christ, —Worship and Culture, —Worship and Evangelism, —Worship and Music

This past weekend I had the privilege of presenting a workshop at Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference in Waco, TX. Through a series of email discussions, David and I came up with the title, “The Functional Limits of Creativity: How Innovative Can We Be with the Gospel?” When Crowder first contacted me about participating in the conference I wanted to make sure he knew where I was coming from in the area of creativity. I love creativity, but think God has placed limits on its use in congregational meetings. He told me that’s why he wanted me to come to the conference. Well, that made my day. I divided my workshop message into …

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Reflections on Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference

By on October 7, 2010 in —Other Events

Well, I’m back from one of the more unusual conferences I’ve had the privilege of speaking at, Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference, held in Waco, TX, hosted by the ever gracious and witty David Crowder. The schedule was non-stop, with speakers/presenters including Francis Chan, Rob Bell, Louie Giglio, David Dark, Matt Redman, and a few others. I participated in a main session panel and also led a workshop, “The Functional Limits of Creativity: How Innovative Can We Be with the Gospel?” (I’ll share the notes from that in a separate post). The conference featured a diverse group of bands and musicians who both presented their own music …

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Looking for a Synthesizer?

By on September 28, 2010 in —Music Equipment, —Musicians & Vocalists

Recently, someone contacted me about purchasing a synthesizer. My current knowledge of electronic keyboards is woefully outdated, so I passed the question on to Roger Hooper, who is the synth-player in my church and a long-time friend. He’s also a gifted composer and film scorer. Here’s how Roger responded: If the purpose of the keyboard is to do the non-piano stuff, you’ll save a lot of money going the non-weighted key bed route. I am primarily a pianist, but I’ve found that in either playing in the worship band (I also play out in the DC area), a non-weighted action is much better for playing organ parts, and the synth parts as well. Korg, …

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The Cross and Christian Ministry

By on September 21, 2010 in —Worship and Christ, —Worship and Culture

A few years ago, at the recommendation of C.J. Mahaney, I read The Cross and Christian Ministry by D.A. Carson. Carson exposits select passages from 1 Corinthians, explaining how the cross affects our understanding of preaching, the Holy Spirit, factionalism, Christian leadership, and being a world Christian. I’d highly recommend it for any Christian leader who believes “Christ crucified” defines not only our message but our methods of ministry. Here are a few quotes that impacted me: Replacing The Primary with the Secondary “It is at least possible that we are the generation of believers who will destroy much of historic Christianity from …

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Who’s in Charge Here?

By on September 19, 2010 in —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and the Pastor

In a church context it’s sometimes difficult to know the difference between leading the singing and leading the meeting. It’s an important distinction. I recently talked to a worship leader who asked about how I’d handle a situation he just went through. His pastor asked him to lead a specific song to close the meeting. In fact, he insisted on it, although the worship leader expressed doubts about its effectiveness. When the end of the meeting came, another leader accidentally dismissed the congregation prematurely. The worship leader was ready to start the final song but people were already streaming out the doors. The pastor caught his eye …

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The Gospel Song – An Animation

By on August 24, 2010 in —Song Downloads, —Sovereign Grace Music, —Worship and Christ, Videos

Not too long ago I came across the work of Chris Powers, who put together an animated video of one of our songs, The Prodigal. I was moved by the way he used simple animation to illustrate the song in a powerful way. Recently Chris told me he had animated another one of our songs, The Gospel Song. Here are the lyrics: Holy God in love became Perfect man to bear my blame On the cross he took my sin By his death I live again. In the video, Chris also added a portion of a message by John Piper where he pleads with unbelievers to trust in the finished work of Christ for their sins. The Gospel Song was first written for a musical …

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Invisible Gorillas and Humility

By on August 11, 2010 in —Books

I just finished reading The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chablis and Daniel Simons. No, it’s not a Christian book, nor is it a book for people responsible for leading congregational worship (the target audience of my blog). But I think it’s relevant to both. The book was named for the video above. If you haven’t watched it, you should now. The authors describe the purpose of their book in the introduction: The Invisible Gorilla is a book about six everyday illusions that profoundly influence our lives: the illusions of attention, memory, confidence, knowledge, cause, and potential. These …

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How Does a Worship Leader Cue the Congregation?

By on August 6, 2010 in —Leading a Congregation, —Musicians & Vocalists, —Vocalists

A while back I received an email from Paul asking: One of the central roles of a worship band is to help the congregation to sing. Do you have advice on how a worship band can best cue the congregation? What kinds of things could I tell my instrumentalists and singers to do to help the people come in on the first words of a song or verse? How would you in general encourage congregational singing? Paul’s question highlights one of the differences between leading a group of people to praise God from their hearts and simply playing and singing music for them. While people can certainly join along as we play our songs, it’s helpful when we make …

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New Matthew Smith CD – Watch the Rising Day

By on July 30, 2010 in —Hymns, —Music Reviews

Recently I’ve been listening to Matthew Smith’s new CD Watch the Rising Day. Matthew has been contributing to the contemporary hymn-based music of Indelible Grace for years, but has also produced a few of his own albums. He asked me to preview his new CD which I was more than happy to do. Like Indelible Grace, all the songs on Watch the Rising Day are drawn from hymn texts, although not ones you’d necessarily be familiar with. As I’ve read through a few words-only hymnals I’ve been amazed at the wealth that still remains to be explored in old hymn lyrics. Matthew is seeking to mine those treasures and modernize the settings. LYRICS Drawing …

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Ryan Ferguson Recites Psalm 25

By on July 28, 2010 in —Worship and Scripture, —WorshipGod Conferences

As a follow up to what I posted on Monday, here’s an example of focusing on the content without ignoring the container. This is a video from the WorshipGod08 conference, where Ryan Ferguson is reciting Psalm 25, using the English Standard Version (ESV) translation.  It’s about 4 minutes and very moving. If you want to see more, you can watch Ryan’s interpretations of  Psalm 145, Psalm 22, and Hebrews 9 and 10. If you’re interested, you can contact Ryan at ryanf@nhcconline.com. What would happen if we always heard/read/thought about Scripture with this kind of emotion and thoughtfulness? …

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Discerning The Difference Between Containers and Content

By on July 26, 2010 in —Leading a Congregation, —Liturgy

A few months ago I had the privilege of speaking to a few classes at Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. During a Q&A, someone asked me what things we can do to keep our meetings from becoming dull, rote, and routine. Although there are probably a number of ways to answer that question, what came to my mind was the difference between containers and content in our meetings. “Container” describes what’s going on during a particular portion of the meeting. In a more formal church the containers might be listed out in a bulletin and include things like Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession, Assurance of Pardon, Worship in Song, …

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I’m Giving (I Gave) Away 100 Albums

By on July 23, 2010 in —Album Giveaways, —Sovereign Grace Music, —Spanish Books, CDs, Websites

UPDATE: We’ve now reached our goal of 100 requests for a free copy of Alli en la Cruz. Thanks for helping us get the word out to our Spanish brothers and sisters! I’m excited to announce the newest release from Sovereign Grace Music: Allí en la Cruz. Translated, that means There at the Cross. I’m so excited that I want to give 100 of them away (details below). In 2002 we produced our first Spanish CD, Sea la Gloria solo a Ti, twelve Sovereign Grace songs translated from the English versions. We were happy we could produce something to serve our Spanish churches, but as you might guess, the songs sounded like what they were – translations. …

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Two Songs for Suffering Saints

By on July 20, 2010 in —Choosing Songs, —Song Downloads, —Songs of Lament, —Worship and Life

Our church is in the middle of a series on 1 Peter and we’ve been talking a lot about suffering. Peter starts off by telling us that we will be grieved by various kind of trials, “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:7). For the Christian, trials are never purposeless, random, or wasted. God is using them to work out his perfect plans and to conform us to the image of his Son. How do we know this? Because he has promised in his Word that “for those who love God all things …

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When Should a Worship Song Be Retired?

By on July 16, 2010 in —Choosing Songs, —Worship and the Pastor

I was talking with a pastor the other day about one of his worship leaders who has a hard time leaving old songs behind (as in “Shine, Jesus, Shine”). Apparently there are a few songs from the 80s that the worship leader still finds quite moving. Unfortunately, the pastor and many young members of the congregation don’t share his enthusiasm. Our conversation led me to think of a few questions that might be asked in this situation: Is it wrong to retire old songs? If they should be retired, how do you know the right time? Do we even need to be singing new songs? What makes a song “old?” Once a song is retired, should we ever bring it …

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