A Gathering Litany – Revisited

A Gathering Litany Here’s an example of what worship leaders do and how they put things together for use in the church.  You will note that the three contributors from this post live thousands of miles apart.  Today’s technology is amazing.  Thank you God. Several months ago I posted a gathering litany for use as [...]

How to Modernize a Hymn – Part two of a two part series

“Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” by Michael Schroeder Let’s consider the doxology put to music, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” which is hymn number 334 in “Christian Worship” (the Lutheran Hymnal). By looking at the hymn, it’s apparent that it is written in the key of G because it has one [...]

How to Modernize a Hymn – Part one of a two part series

I don’t think there are many Christians, even those who use nothing but Contemporary music, that doubt or question the depth and the beauty of the lyrics contained in our wealth of hymns. But sometimes, they are difficult to comprehend or are just too musically foreign to those that we are Called to reach. There [...]

A Commentary on Hymns

Hymns are great.  However… I believe that one of the issues with hymns is the fact that the style of musical accompaniment has become foreign to our modern ears; especially to those who might not have grown up in the church.  We are accustomed to hearing music that is accompanied by chords – either played [...]

HOTD

Many of you know that this is an acronym for “Hymn of the Day.”  The HOTD is the musical piece that precedes the sermon.  Lyrically it is the hardest hitting piece of the worship set, is spot-on with the readings and sometimes is even referred to by the Pastor in his sermon.  The relationship between [...]

Song Choices to Accompany Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is documented in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5:1-47. It begins with the beautiful Beatitudes in verses 1-12. This section of scripture comes up in our Lectionary during the season of Epiphany on 1/30/11 (Mt 5:1-12), 2/6/11 (Mt 5:13-20) and 2/13 (Mt 5:21-37). The following are my favorite songs to [...]

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 [...]

CW Hymnal Scripture References

I have put together an EXCEL spreadsheet that lists the scripture references for the hymns in our “Christian Worship” hymnal.  Perhaps this data exists elsewhere but my collection has the data sorted in three ways: 1.         Sorted by hymn title 2.         Sorted by scripture reference 3.         Sorted by hymn number You can download the file [...]

Free Chord Chart for “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”

In my prior post, I had mentioned a new version of the hymn “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” arranged by Michael Schroeder.  The post also included a video of the piece.  Michael has offered a chord sheet of his arrangement to anyone interested.  You can get your free copy by either downloading the [...]

Unction & Chrism

That’s one of the great things about hymns – unction & chrism. I say this because our choir practiced a new hymn from the hymnal supplement the other night titled: “Holy Spirit, the Dove Sent from Heaven” (CWS 732).  After singing our way through the song, we all kind of had a quizzical look on [...]