Worship Matters

Yesterday I posted a video of Mark Altrogge at WorshipGod09 pulling a ticket out of a jar to announce the winner of a prize drawing. Sounds simple, I know. Here’s another video, demonstrating how in the hands of a master, a simple task can become a 12 minute comedy routine. If you haven’t had enough [...]

Mark Altrogge is a multi-talented man. His songs have been sung across the world (I Stand in Awe, Forever Grateful) and he continues to be one of the most prolific, humble songwriters I know. He’s also a caring husband and dad, and a superb pastor at his church in Indiana, Pa. Not to mention, he’s [...]

A few years ago my church was teaching through the books of Galatians and Philippians and we wanted to help people memorize a number of the verses. We invited the members of the church to contribute original songs and ended up setting about 1/3 of each book to music. They were low-budget projects, but even [...]

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 [...]

In my eleven years as director of worship development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, I’ve reviewed hundreds of worship songs and written a few of my own. Not all of them have been stellar. Actually, very few of them have been. I’ve noticed recurring tendencies that keep weak songs from becoming good or great songs. I’m [...]

Over at the Sovereign Grace website, we’ve finally posted 29 WorshipGod08 seminars for you to listen to or download for free. . . . Here’s the list: Band on the Run (Bob Kauflin) Building Bridges: Pastors and Worship Leaders (Bob Kauflin) Caring for Your Sound System (Darryl Wenger) Copyright Law and Church Music: The Eight [...]

Yesterday we had another planning meeting for WorshipGod08: Rediscovering the Psalms, to be held July 30- Aug 2 at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD, outside of Washington, D.C. This will be our 5th conference. Every one has been filled with rich biblical teaching, practical instruction, fresh encounters with God, great fellowship, and lots of [...]

For the past few years, we’ve been trying to encourage and develop the songwriters in Sovereign Grace churches. This past week we spent three days with thirteen song writers working on songs for an upcoming Psalms project, to be released at the WorshipGod08 conference. It was one of the most encouraging annual retreats we’ve had. [...]

Last year we released an album of songs celebrating the Incarnation. We called it Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man. It was the CD my family started the day with this morning. Here are the words to the opening song, Christ the Lord, written by my good friend, Mark Altrogge. How my happy [...]

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, [...]

As the Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, one of the things I do is oversee the production and direction of the CD’s we produce. That means I talk to CJ Mahaney, who leads Sovereign Grace, and plan the themes we want to build our projects around. Our last project was a father-son [...]