In an effort to encourage Psalm-singing, Church of the Servant invites congregational songwriters to submit a Psalm-based song to its 2011 COS New Psalm Contest. The winner will receive a $500 award. There is no entry fee and the contest is open to all. Submissions must be emailed or postmarked by October 1, 2011. The [...]

Throughout this year the COS choir has been singing movements from Handel’s Messiah in worship, weaving them into the liturgy rather than singing them as performance pieces. For example, we sang the chorus “Glory to God” as the Gloria at Christmas and “Behold the Lamb of God” as the Agnus Dei during Lent.
Of course, what [...]

Guitarchestra is playing this Sunday evening. Here’s what to practice:

We Have Come to Join in Worship: PDF, MP3
What a Friend We Have in Jesus: PDF, MP3
He Leadeth Me: PDF, MP3
Scheer Doxology: PDF, MP3
And as a little reward for your diligent rehearsing, here’s a little Holy Manna Remix: MP3

Getting up early on a Sunday morning to go through details of the service, set up chairs, and schlepp equipment from my office to the sanctuary is the grunt work of ministry. But this Sunday there were some nice perks, as well. First was this beautiful sunrise:

I was walking from my car, and it was so [...]

Psalm 95: If Today You Hear God’s Voice (David Haas, found in Gather Comprehensive 2, 51)
Psalm 95 was the lectionary Psalm for Sunday. Most settings of this Psalm lean heavily toward the “come, let us sing to the Lord” and “come, let us worship and bow down” parts of the Psalm. This being Lent, I [...]

I must admit that I’m a song maven. When I like a song, I feel compelled to let everyone know. So when Psalm 131 came up in the lectionary last week and I saw Bruce Benedict’s setting in my files with an A marked in the upper left corner in red, I knew we had [...]