Does your choir sing a Benediction every week? Mine does during the program year, although it’s called a “Benediction Response,” since it comes immediately after the pastoral Benediction. It’s been surprisingly challenging to find pieces that work for my choir, since the pieces must be a cappella, as well as relatively short and easy. For …
Does your choir sing introits? My choir sings one almost every week during the program year, and I love how they can highlight a service theme and set the mood. Plus, they’re a great way to teach new congregational hymns. What is an introit? In the broader sense, it’s a short choral piece sung at …
I’ve been holding out on this post because…it seems obvious? Like making a hymn set should be really straight-forward, and why didn’t I try it sooner? But maybe you’re like me just a few months ago: I thought creating hymn sets – also know as medleys and song sets – would be tricky. And I …
An Easy Way to Create Hymn Sets (plus 10 Sets to Get Started) Read More »
What a fun trip last week for the Christian Congregational Music Conference and the Three Choirs Festival – I am SO jetlagged, even after sleeping 9 (!) hours last night…. Here are some photos from my trip, the fantastic choral music I heard, plus an overview of my talk at the conference.
Hymnals and screens often get a knee-jerk response. Supposedly, either hymnals are for old fogeys or people staying true to the faith. And either screens are for people who hate hymns or people who want to use current tools in the church. But if we get past the surface arguments, we can explore what the …
Hymns: In Hymnals? On Screens? (Paperless?!) on Music and the Church Ep. 40 Read More »
Do you think people listen to song lyrics? Maybe? Maybe not? How about congregational singing: do you think people pay attention to the words they’re reading and singing? Honestly, I’m not convinced most people pay attention to the words, whether or not they’re singing or listening to someone else sing.
I love hymns. I can sing hundreds from memory. I’ve been a church musician for 20 years, always in churches that used “traditional” hymnody. I even did a PhD dissertation focused on Christian congregational music. BUT. I don’t love hymnals.
In honor of Pride Month, here are the congregational songs of extravagant and affirming welcome that I’m programming at my church. The congregation knows these songs already because I’ve been introducing them throughout the past year. So singing them them all this month isn’t a drive-by acknowledgement of Pride Month, but an extra emphasis on …
Every Sunday morning when the sermon begins, I duck out of the sanctuary, walk down the hall to the nursery, and start singing.
Do you keep track of the hymns your congregation sings? Most churches I’ve been in have a fantastically low-tech way of keeping track of when hymns are sung: somebody just writes the date in a hymnal! As long as that somebody is consistent, you end up with a record that tells you something about the …
Why You Need a Hymn Database + a Free Spreadsheet Template Read More »