Just a quick announcement – The Foundry Creative Arts School will be beginning free group lessons for instrumentalists beginning this Fall. Stay tuned for more information and details about this exciting development for the school.
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Dr. Clayton Erb, Music Director at Grace Community Church, is an inspiration to anyone in music ministry. I wanted to make sure that the readers of this blog would be able to enjoy some of the free downloads of the music ministry at Grace Community Church under Dr. Erb’s direction during their Shepherd’s Conference (a conference for Pastor’s and Church leaders). This is where you can find the music downloads.
www.gracechurch.org/music
‘Sweet Hour of Prayer’ is a hymn that many of us have sung many times. We sang it this past Sunday night before a time of prayer for our church. I mentioned that the words were written by William Walford.
Not much is know about him. What we do know shows a man full of devotion to the Lord. He was blind. He had no formal education. He was a preacher in Coles Hill, Warwickshire, England and would spend his days preparing sermons in a corner by his chimney while carving bones for shoe horns. He memorized massive amounts of Scripture and would spend hours and hours in prayer. He would compose poetry in his mind and wait for someone to come and write it down. This life story proves to be inspiring to us all as we sing this hymn and especially these lines:
‘And since he bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word, and trust His grace.
I’ll cast on Him my ev’ry care, and wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer’
I may have made mention of this resource before on a previous post but a repeat blog is worth the space.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has an Institute of Christian Worship at which many leading theologians and musicians have given lectures and workshops. These men are godly, experienced and have much to say on the issues that church musicians face today. Below is the link for audio to many of the lectures.
This excerpt from a conversation with noted preacher C.J. Mahaney, Jeff Purswell and Bob Kauflin articulate, so well, the focus of our singing in worship. Important insights at the end of the video when he quotes Martin Lloyd-Jones.
Why Sing So Many Cross-centered Songs?
Yesterday at the Senior’s Ministry luncheon, I presented on some of the music ministry happening here at Evangelical Presbyterian Church and its relationship to trends in music history and church history. Here’s a bit of what we talked about.
Composers always compose with structure (for the music critics out there – I hold that even aleatoric (chance) music has structure). Structure holds things together. Let me give you an example of structure in music.
The Reformation was about making theology, based on Scripture alone, plain to people. This had a dramatic effect on music making in the Protestant churches. Reformers wanted to make the tunes approachable, clear, enjoyable and singable for all in the congregation. Composers would use structures in their music to enforce learning of the words in the vernacular and hence, the theology of a particular song.
One of the overwhelming structures that was used was the Bar Form. This is a structure based on the melodies that are repeated throughout a hymn. It can be represented with the symbols AABA. Think of ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’. It repeats one melody at the beginning, has a second unique melody in the middle and then closes with the melody from the beginning.
Composers today, like the Gettys, Cooks, and Stuart Townend, are embracing this structure in composing hymns that are theologically rich, thoughtful and infused with the Gospel. Hymns that we sing, ‘In Christ Alone’ and ‘Creation Sings’ are recently composed using the structure of Bar Form for the purpose of memorizing. They are missional, like music of the Reformation, in that anyone can learn them regardless of their musical background. They are focused and clear in their presentation of their text.
So – just a bit mentioned here on seeing how the music we sing today has missional, pedagogical and gospel focus. This music is carefully chosen at our church to bring God glory and so that the Gospel would dwell in your heart richly.
A major figure in the world of church music today is Stuart Townend. He is a collaborator with Keith Getty. He is probably best know for his song ‘How Deep the Father’s Love For Us.’
He has a new youtube channel (www.youtube.com/stuarttownend) at which the current song being played here, ‘Come People of the Risen King’ is one of my favorites. This is taken from his recent album ‘Creation Sings’.
This song will bless your family. My two year old son loves it!
Chancel Choir is singing a text this Sunday that we have been meditating on as a church over the past couple of weeks. Looking forward to hearing Kevin Botbyl and the Choir sing this sweet reminder and call to repentance.
Seek Ye the Lord by J.V. Roberts
Isaiah 55: 5, 6
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;et the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Stay tuned this year as this site will be updated once a week this year. Some exciting things coming our way!
Come and join us for a service for the entire family at 7:30pm, Christmas Eve.