Comments on: Why We Need Old and New Hymns… Badly

By: Kass

Kass — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:45:20 +0000

Kristyn & Keith Getty are awesome: http://www.gettymusic.com.

By: Adam Malliet

Adam Malliet — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:52:07 +0000

Funny though, we just did Humble Thyself. We are including a Jesus People era song in each of our sets for a month or two.

By: ed

ed — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:01:26 +0000

Adam, that’s brilliant. I need to query Worship Magazine or something to see if I can do a profile of you all. You’ve come a long way since the days of “Humble Thyself,” eh?

By: Adam Malliet

Adam Malliet — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:44:13 +0000

Some things we do at Circle of Hope:

Hymns are always apart of worship

Songs from other cultures are included (Spirituals,
Sacred Harp, Black Gospel, Native American)

We write our own music. One of our congregations writes a new song each week, they have been doing this for a couple of years. We commission musicians in our community to write songs. As a result, we have written a couple hundred songs. We support the Psalters, a band of vocational worshipers. They write music, but also train people to worship through classes at their studio.

For the new person walking through the door, we usually included a modern “Praise and Worship” song.

We always include a song in a different language (Spanish, Hindi, lots of African tribal songs)

Just some ways we use music to fully engage in worship.

By: Christian Praise

Christian Praise — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:02:18 +0000

I just wanted to say thanks for writing this. I hope many people read it. You have many good points to make and as a worship leader, I can agree with you. I especially like what you said here: “hymns have a story to tell that takes us beyond a feeling or experience.” Like you, I do not say modern choruses are bad vs hymns being good, but there is a lot of emphasis on “Me” and “Feelings” without much of a story. Christian praise is all about focusing on what God has done for us and considering the blessings he has bestowed on us. We need to be careful not to get caught up in the emotion but to get caught up in God.

Thanks again
Sharron from Christian Praise Blog

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:01:07 +0000

Good thoughts here. (And I find it difficult to sing about being in heaven someday!)

My background is in ethnomusicology, and with that in mind, I’d add one thought (sort of an extension of your “God is at work today” point): God’s glory is reflected in the diversity of cultures in the world. I look forward to hearing the myriad of styles of worship on the new earth from Bach to Swahili music to Russian orthodox music, and we have the opportunity to taste that in the hear and now. While we can’t make it about preference, and indeed can learn much about the principles of unity and diversity by submitting our preferences to our neighbor’s preferences, we can worship God in our natural tongue or style. Really, this is true of any art form or worship form, but we see it more evidently in music.