A question that has arisen over the years is this: How "creative" should we seek to be in our gathered Sunday worship? As one who has looked more into the regulative vs normative principles, I’d say I fall somewhere in the middle - I think we’re given freedom in the ways we follow the prescribed [...]
“And so this is Christmas what have we done?Another year over,A new one just begun.”True confession: though I live in England, I’m not much of a John Lennon fan. But every year from Dec 26 to Jan 2 this song echoes in my mind - “So this is Christmas… what have we done?” Let me [...]
Some years ago, I attended a worship music conference and was struck by a statement one of the seminar presenters made about song choice and song repertoire. He said, Much like a preacher who sees his job as bringing out the diamond (the Scriptures) each week and then turning it so that his audience can [...]
Physical Expression in Worship The first time I saw someone raise their hands in a worship setting, I was curious... but not confused. I didn't think anyone was "asking a question". I had been to see Whitesnake and Great White and Motley Crüe in concert. I had seen people fully physically engaged with something that [...]
Last time we looked at the Formats of songs used for worship - Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs. And we noted that the lyrics were of primary importance. So, how do we determine lyrical depth? Where does the line lie between God honoring emotion and pleasure-seeking emotionalism? I would contend the lyrics should be un-confusing [...]
In Part I, we looked at music in the Church - that the songs we use are to be: - richly full of the message of Christ - sung to God and to one another - from the heart and filled with gratitude But ....what about song formats or structures? What musical style should we use? [...]
I recently was speaking at a church about what our worship gatherings should look like, specifically in the area of music. It's mostly disheartening (but a bit comforting tbh) to know that the Church has argued over musical styles for centuries. Sadly, what is designed (in part) as a demonstration of our unity has been [...]
As mentioned in my last post, the church has rightly begun to re-examine the words we use to add clarity and help avoid misunderstanding. Sometimes this from a heart that desires to help the congregation more fully embrace a humble, grateful, Biblical theology and sometimes it’s merely out of a sense of modern Pharisee-ism, wanting [...]
Thanks for joining me on this journey! Having served for a couple decades in church ministry, perhaps some of the things I’ve learned will be helpful for your context. I’m by no means an ‘expert’ in the area of music/arts ministries, and I’ve learned to be very wary of anyone who claims to have [...]
DREaM in London 