Worship Matters

Thanks for the encouraging comments many of you left on my last post. I love to do what I can to support bands that are committed to theologically solid, gospel-centered modern worship songs. Sounds like a lot of you feel the same way.
To pick the winners of the free album download I used a random number [...]

I was going to do this at noon but was in the middle of teaching a seminar on parenting 19-22 year olds…
We had some great entries for this contest and I wish I could give away a free NEXT registration to everyone who participated. THANKS for being so enthusiastic about the conference!
But the three individuals [...]

Last night, in the last four hours before midnight, we had a rush of people voting for their favorite To Be Like Jesus video.
It was close.
At the end of the day (12:02 AM to be exact), Abby Cannon’s video “To Be Like Jesus” edged out Jon Ruth’s video “Gotta Wait” by two votes. The final tally [...]

Two months ago I invited people to send in videos based on one of the songs from our most recent kids’ album, To Be Like Jesus (now available for $6 during our February sale). The best video would receive a $250 Amazon.com gift card.
We narrowed it down to two finalists. The first, Gotta Wait, is from Jonathan [...]

Each summer my church holds an event for 6-10 year olds called Summer Celebration, led by one of our pastors, Mike Bradshaw. It’s a week long event filled with fun, games, teaching, songs, and encouragement. The leadership team (which includes a significant number of high schoolers) invests hours of planning and preparation with the goal of [...]

No, this isn’t a contest to see who can be the most like Jesus…
Sovereign Grace Music is inviting families, individuals, children’s ministries, and whoever else is up for making a creative video to participate in a contest using our latest kids’ album, To Be Like Jesus. The prize is a $250 gift certificate to Amazon.com.
Here’s [...]

What? You say you didn’t even know we had a songwriting contest?
No surprise. It was pretty low key. At the start of 2009, I sent out an email to the Sovereign Grace worship leaders announcing a contest for 14-22 year old songwriters. The rules were pretty simple. Submit up to two original congregational songs by [...]

I received some creative responses in the ESV Study Bible giveaway. Here are a few you might enjoy.
The reason I should get one of those Bible is that if you bring me one, I’ll take you diving and you’ll get to experience worship on a whole new level — about 100 feet below the surface! [...]

Last week I shared my desire to give away ten ESV Study Bibles to encourage people to read through the Word of God, assisted by the valuable notes in this particular Bible.
Over 300 of you sent in your reason, in 50 words or less, why you’d like to receive a Bible. I was deeply moved [...]

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 [...]

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 in [...]

Worship Matters, the book, has been out for a few weeks now, and I’ve been encouraged by initial responses. When I was writing it, I prayed that the book would be give worship leaders, pastors, and musicians a clear and practical biblical perspective on how they can most effectively serve the church in the area [...]

At some point I want to give away some copies of my book, but I just learned that the folks at blog.worship.com are doing just that this week. In addition, they’ll be posting the four videos I did for the book that outline the four sections:
The Leader
The Task
Healthy Tensions
Right Relationships
Stop by and check it out.

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Last week I offered a free registration to the WorshipGod08 conference for the person who had the funniest story from a time they led corporate worship. There were some great contributions. Reading them made me freshly aware that God does indeed use the foolish and the weak to accomplish his purposes (1 Cor. 1:27).
Contributions included [...]

We’re in the midst of planning for WorshipGod08: Rediscovering the Psalms. Registration has been moving along, but we’re still four and a half months away from the conference. If you’re planning on coming, I wanted to remind you that registration rates go up $25 each on April 1, and again on July 1.
But here’s a [...]