Worship Matters

Over on the Sovereign Grace Music Facebook site we have a race going on. In mid-June we plan to release our second kid’s CD, To Be Like Jesus. (The first was Awesome God). It’s 12 songs based on the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5. The songs teach that these qualities (love, joy, peace, [...]

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 [...]

Last year, at WorshipGod08, we presented a choral arrangement of “Glorious and Mighty,” from the Psalms CD. Unfortunately, the recording didn’t turn out very well. But at this year’s Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference we sang the piece again and recorded it to 24 track. I thought it turned out much better. In any case, you [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Christianity Today offers a review of twenty Christmas CDs that are new this year. Hard to believe that many are being published. Artists include Travis Cottrell, Sara Groves, Fernando Ortega, Shane & Shane, and more. I hope to post any songs I find that may be worth considering. If you haven’t heard Sovereign Grace’s Christmas [...]

Last week I posted a download and stream of Nail My Glory, one of the live songs from the New Attitude conference in Louisville, KY. I have three more for you today. Ransomed The first is the song Ransomed, written by my son Jordan, with original words by John Kent (1827). A number of people [...]

God tells us in Proverbs that “A wise son makes a glad father” (Prov. 15:20). For that reason, I’m a very happy man, because God has given me not only one, but two, wise sons – Jordan and Devon. Over the years I’ve sought to impress upon my sons that glorifying Jesus Christ for his [...]

Last year we released our first CD for Christmas, Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man. It’s made up of twelve original songs that explore and respond to the miracle of the incarnation. When I say the songs are “original,” I mean that we didn’t include favorites like “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Although, [...]

One of the joys of doing what I do is meeting people who share a similar passion for glorifying Jesus Christ through music. Will Pavone has been a good friend of mine for the past few years. He was part of the group Circadian Rhythm a few years ago, served as a worship pastor at [...]

After two or three months I’m finally changing the free download song on the sidebar of Worship Matters. Last year when we were working on the Valley of Vision project I wanted to include a song based on a prayer that communicated the Puritans’ passion to advance the Gospel. I found it in "God’s Cause," [...]

I’ve received a number of e-mails asking for the new version of the hymn “Hallelujah, What a Savior,” that we taught at the New Attitude conference, music and chorus written by my son, Devon. I promised a while back that I’d post them, so here you go. The original version was by Phillip Bliss, an [...]

Those of you who read Worship Matters through a blog aggregator won’t notice that I’ve finally changed the free song on my side bar. For a limited time (which usually turns out to be a couple months…) you can download a free MP3 of the song, The Look. For years, C.J. Mahaney referred to a [...]

I’m taking a break from Q&A Friday to thank you for stopping by worshipmatters.com. A free song is available as a download to the right. It’s from our most recent project, WorshipGod Live. It’s called “Receive the Glory,” and I wrote it for the “Milestone Weekend” (Sept. 18-19, 2004) when my former senior pastor, C.J. [...]