The History of Contemporary Worship with Swee Hong Lim and Lester Ruth, on Music and the Church Ep. 3

Image shows podcast cover with text: Music and the Church with Sarah Bereza. At sarah-bereza.com

Interview: Dr. Swee Hong Lim and Dr. Lester Ruth discuss their new book Lovin’ on Jesus: A Concise History of Contemporary Worship.

It’s an exploration of the origins of contemporary worship—including contemporary worship music. In our conversation, we discuss the implications their research has on church music today: What should traditional church consider if they want to add a contemporary service and will it attract young people? Can blended worship services have integrity? And how do different theologies of worship shape church services?

Swee Hong Lim is the Deer Park Associate Professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, and he is also the Director of their Master of Sacred Music Program. You can read more about his research here and find some of his hymns here.

Lester Ruth is a Research Professor of Christian Worship at Duke University. You can read more about his work here and follow him on Twitter here.

Enjoying this podcast episode? Click here to find other Music and the Church episodes, or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Resources We Mentioned:

Try This At Church: I finally got lay-flat spiral binding on my big music books! Super cheap, super easy, and my page turner will never have to spend an *entire* postlude holding the book on the music rack. Crawford and I also discuss the pros and cons of copying music and taping it into manila folders.

%d bloggers like this: