Worship Matters

In the process of hosting this ESV Bible giveaway, I discovered that the “Contact Me” link on my blog hasn’t been working for a while. Like for a year. So the wonderful IT folks here at Sovereign Grace did some research and found that any emails sent through the “Contact Me” link ended up in [...]

A while back I posted on why I like the ESV Study Bible and my plan to read through it by the end of 2009. Here’s my first update on how it’s going. I just started 1 Samuel. If I continue at my current pace, I should be done before the end of 2009. I’ve only grown [...]

Just a little over thirty six years ago, I received the greatest gift I’ll ever receive: salvation from God’s wrath and adoption into his family through the gospel. After that, the gifts I’m most grateful for today are in the picture below, taken this past Thanksgiving. Six children, three spouses of my children, seven grandchildren, [...]

This past Sunday I had the privilege of leading the singing at my home church. At Christmas time there’s sometimes a tension between choosing to sing songs that are “comfortably Christmasy” or songs that help people glory in the miracle of God becoming man. So here’s what we went with: Hark! the Herald Angels Sing [...]

We just learned that Worship Leader magazine has included our Psalms CD as one of six choices for the “Best Worship Compilation CD” for 2008. Boy, were we surprised. There in the midst of Passion, CeCe Winans, and WOW Gospel, is Sovereign Grace Ministries. There are six CDs in the category, and I’d like to [...]

Even though 2008 isn’t finished yet, I’m in the midst of planning for our next worship conference, WorshipGod09: From Generation to Generation, to be held Aug. 5-8, 2009, in Gaithersburg, MD. The main messages will address the importance of passing on biblical values of corporate worship from one generation to the next. I was thrilled [...]

What do you do when in the middle of leading worship you have a train wreck? We had the opportunity to find out at the WorshipGod conference last August. Joseph Stigora, from Covenant Fellowship in Philadelphia, was doing a great job leading with his team. But as he started into a musical rendition of Psalm [...]

I’ve mentioned the blog of our tech director, Dave Wilcox, before. It’s called “Undistract,” which I think is a great name for a blog devoted to the media and technical aspects of a church. Recently Dave shared some thoughts on how a stage manager can best serve a band during rehearsal. The relationship between bands [...]

I just finished reading Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, by Geoff Colvin. Fascinating book. Giftedness is a topic that I’ve thought about a lot. Are we selling ourselves short by assuming that we’ll never be as good a keyboardist, vocalist, guitarist, drummer, or whatever, as the people we esteem? [...]

In a previous post I extolled the virtues of the Sibelius notation software. Some of you wrote that you were thinking about upgrading. Just wanted you to know that through Dec. 12, you can upgrade to Sibelius 5 for $85 if you own a regular copy, or $65 if you own a student or educational [...]

I’m trying out a new format for Worship Matters that I’ll be working on for the next few days. Of course, if you get Worship Matters by email or RSS, you won’t even notice. If you have any thoughts in the mean time for things I could add or change, please let me know. Thanks.

I’ve been musing recently about how we express our musical opinions. Why do we feel so strongly about songs, bands, and styles? And why do we draw conclusions so quickly? Nope. Don’t like it. That stinks. I can’t stand that kind of music. You like that stuff? Is there anything wrong with raving about the [...]

Last April I had the joy of leading over 5000 individuals, mostly men, in times of corporate worship at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, KY. Dave Mackenzie, who works for Sovereign Grace, set up mics to record the event, and I’m happy to let you know you can now buy the CD [...]

Yesterday I learned that Andree Farias of Christianity Today Online reviewed our latest CD, Psalms. It’s the second Sovereign Grace CD he’s reviewed. Last month he also reviewed Looked Upon, a project that my sons Devon and Jordan were involved in. While I don’t always agree with everything in the CT reviews, I appreciate that [...]

Last month my church started memorizing great hymns of the faith. We’ll be memorizing a hymn a month for ten months. Ken Boer, who oversees music at Covenant Life, explains on the church website why we’re doing this: Memorizing hymns is one of the ways we can obey Scripture’s command to “let the word of [...]