Is the rich engagement of faith with the deepest and most profound musical expressions of humankind totally off the screen? Are people to be denied this legacy and treated contemptuously? I can only speak from my own experience, which is that people long for what is...
The ideal of church music is found in its function. This function is religious: to bring to stronger and clearer consciousness and to greater vitality our inherent religious nature. At the heart of church music must be the consciousness of this religious nature: the...
But for this writer, the most important role of the music ministry is NOT in the preparation and presentation of special programs. Instead, it is in the week after week leadership given in our worship services. Whether the singing of a hymn, a choral anthem, the organ...
Great truths of physical energy plus imaginative vision plus human consolation are experienced through great music. Here is the highest function of music-making. In the words of…Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Listening to great music is a shattering experience, throwing the...
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
The same breath is blown into the flute, cornet, and bagpipe, but different music is produced according to the different instruments. In the same way, the one Spirit works in us, God’s children but different results are produced, and God is glorified through them...
We shouldn’t limit ourselves to major key songs! The Psalms reveal that much of the Christian life might be spent in a minor key, and it’s time that the church became honest about this reality as well. The church needs to be able to lament together, and minor key...
The New Testament churches were made up of people of different ages, genders, races and socio-economic levels, who came together because of their common belief in Jesus. Christ gave them their identity and, consequently, their unity. In an era of marketing...
We should sing together…because singing brings us together. When you sing with other people, you are saying in effect, “I will not be a soloist; I will not be your competitor; I will blend my voice with yours.” That is, in a very simple and important way, saying that...
I am not much of a singer. I find it difficult to stay in tune. But when I stand next to someone with a fine voice I find it much easier. The voice I hear in my ear helps to keep my voice on line and I like to think of my voice merging with that voice so that the...