Responding with Scripture

Some comments that I’ve heard concerning contemporary music and how to respond using scripture:  The guitar does not belong in the church because it’s the devil’s instrument and it’s association with rock music The music of the strings makes you glad (Ps 45:8) I will sing a new song to you, O God; on the [...]

Music to Close Your Worship Service

Finding contemporary music to match the day’s worship theme is not easy, especially if you need to find four or five songs per Sunday.  You can make this a little easier by making sure that the hymn of the day (HOTD) is a tight match to the  readings but the opening song and closing song [...]

Strong Worship Songs

There is a new BLOG whose objective is to identify music in the Contemporary Christian genre that are filled with biblical truths and are fit for use in today’s churches that recognize the inerrancy and importance of scripture. Further, the BLOG writer categorizes the songs by the church calendar to make it easier to find [...]

Contemporary Advent Worship Music

“The voice that’s crying out, out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, prepare the way for Him. Let heaven open up and glory fill the sky. This is the Son of God, we sing and testify. So behold the lamb of God, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin [...]

More on Choosing Music

Choosing music is one of the most important areas in worship planning and I consider myself blessed to be given the opportunity to help out whenever asked to do so. Think about it this way, you are putting vital words into other people’s mouths and onto their hearts. Words that they otherwise might not have [...]

CW Hymns and CCM Cousins

Several months ago, one of our fine Pastors from the state of Florida asked me if I had a cross-reference table that compares hymns to contemporary equivalents.  I did not have such a resource at the time, so I directed him to http://blendedworshipresource.wordpress.com where the blogger has commented on a few hymn vs CCM “cousins”.   Where [...]

Blended Worship Planning 101

In our church, we have one blended worship service per month where we follow our traditional liturgy to some extent, but we use contemporary music in place of hymns.  I assist with the defining of the music for these blended services so over the years, we have come up with a format that works for [...]

A Scoring System to Determine if a New Song is Congregational-Friendly

How does a worship leader evaluate a piece of sheet music in terms of congregational singability once the lyrics have been approved by the Pastor? After evaluating music for a number of years, I have come to the conclusion that there are about eight different criteria that need to be considered.  Just considering these criteria [...]

Contemporary Lenten Music

Here’s a list of some good Lenten Contemporary music with sound biblical lyrics that have some depth: A Debtor to Mercy Alone Bob Kauflin Above All Baloche, LeBlanc Across the Great Divide Mark Altrogge Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) Chris Tomlin Amazing Love Graham kendrick Amazing Love (You Are My King) Billy Foote At [...]

More on Choosing Music

If you are a fan of American Idol, then you know that “song selection” is critical.  It is for us Pastors and Worship Leaders as well.   The Contemporary Christian Music EXCEL database file that has been available for download in my “FILE DOWNLOAD AREA” (located in the lower right hand column) has been updated [...]