Worship Matters

Recently, we received some good news. Worship Leader magazine picked our Psalms album as one of the “Best of the Best” products for 2009. We were pretty surprised, especially since we released the album in August 2008. But hey, we’re not going to complain. To celebrate, we’ve dropped the price for the Psalms CD to [...]

Yesterday I referred to the message I gave on The Future of Worship at WorshipGod09:From Generation to Generation, I spoke from Ps. 78:1-8 and shared the story of Asaph. My first point was that God commands us to tell the coming generations what he has done. Psalm 78 is a maskil of Asaph, and one [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

One of the highlights of WorshipGod08, and there were many, was the conference choir singing Glorious and Mighty on the last morning. Based on Psalm 96, it’s a song written by Todd Twining and Joel Sczebel, with some lyric tweaking by me. Unfortunately, the audio/video didn’t turn out that well, so I wont’ be posting [...]

On Tuesday, I posted on the first part of the Friday evening session at WorshipGod08. In the final part of the evening I asked biblical counselor David Powlison to speak on the psalmists’ concern for God’s glory on the earth, expressed in the imprecatory psalms. Those are the prayers in the psalms asking God to [...]

We’ve finally posted portions of what took place Friday night at the WorshipGod08 conference. The purpose of this session was largely practical. I asked the question, “How do we become churches, congregations, that more accurately, naturally, and consistently, model the kind of relationship the Psalmists had with God?” I set it up by saying we [...]

WorshipGod08 began with a video. It wasn’t anything dramatic or multi-sensory. We just wanted to point people’s attention to the theme of the conference, “Rediscovering the Psalms.” Different passages from four Psalms (96, 103, 40, 145) were read by people from five nationalities to communicate the relevance of the Psalms to all peoples and cultures. [...]

At the WorshipGod08 conference we recommended and then gave away a number of books. I told the attendees that our purpose was not simply to buy books but to build a library (a phrase I stole from CJ Mahaney, who has used it for years). I wanted to post those books here, in the hopes [...]

Yesterday I posted answers to two questions I asked the speakers who will be addressing us at next week’s WorshipGod08 conference. The questions were: “What do you hope will be filling people’s minds and hearts as they walk away from your message?” and “How do you hope your message will change the way they think [...]

I had hoped to post something on spontaneous songs and choirs this week but never got to it. That will be next week now. I’ve been working on a new songbook we hope to have ready by the WorshipGod conference. It will contain 71 songs from our last six projects. Unlike our downloadable piano scores, [...]

Last week I was in the Sovereign Grace studio with producer Sal Oliveri, recording the vocals for our next project, Psalms, due out at the WorshipGod08 conference in July. I can’t believe we’re already working on another CD when Come Weary Saints just came out. Any way, it was a long but fulfilling week. Ryan [...]

This past Sunday I had the privilege of speaking at Solid Rock Church, the Sovereign Grace church in Riverdale, Maryland, not far from where I live. I spoke on Eph. 5:15-21 and called the message, “Spirit-filled Singing.” I shared six characteristics of singing that are a result of being filled with the Spirit. My first [...]

Do the words we sing in worship matter to God? More than most of us realize. What we sing teaches us, shapes us, molds us, and affects us. So it might seem wise to only sing God’s Word, specifically the Psalms, back to him. But, while there is much we can learn from the Psalms [...]

I started this post last Friday as a Q&A Friday, but never finished it. Oh well… Jacob sent me this question: What is your take on the exclusive use of Psalms in worship?…Since the Psalms were the only Spirit-inspired songs given to the people of God, and because instrument use in the Old Testament is [...]