Gilles Labor Day Poem At Gospel Coalition Website

Labor Day is this coming Monday, here in the U.S. With that in mind, see Bobby’s poem “God of Shop and Marketplace,” featured today at TheGospelCoalition.org.

We’re always honored to contribute or be mentioned in any of the TGC sections because it is one of our favorite websites. This particular piece reminds us that God created us as workers. Work isn’t the product of the Fall — it’s God-ordained activity. The poem then asks God to bless our labor in Christ, and “redeem our work for Kingdom use.”

Bobby originally wrote the poem several years ago, in response to a class on marketplace theology taught by our pastor Daniel Montgomery.

Have a good Labor Day weekend. We’ll resume with new articles here at My Song In The Night next Tuesday.

7 Crucial Tips For Background Vocalists

Here are seven tips for background vocalists that I’ve learned through years of singing in worship teams and bands. Although my advice is specific to church worship ministries, most of it applies to anyone who sings background vocals (BGV).

1)        Allow the lead vocalist to sing the first verse alone so that the congregation can clearly hear the melody. This is for the benefit of any member of your congregation who might be unfamiliar with the song.

• If the song is entirely new to the congregation, also allow the lead vocalist to sing the first chorus alone. But if the song is familiar to your congregation, it’s not as critical to let the main vocalist sing the chorus solo. The congregation will likely be singing more robustly on a familiar chorus, which will aid any visitors who might not be familiar with the song.

2)        Make sure your harmonic singing is in sync with the lead vocalist.  During rehearsal, pay attention to the specific way they are singing the lyrical phrases and do your best to match the timing.  Let them lead the song.

3)        Don’t necessarily sing harmony on every word or phrase.  If the text is particularly wordy, limit your harmonic vocals to the accented words and phrases.  This will also help you keep in time with the lead vocalist who is less likely to vary the timing on the clearly accented words.

4)        As a harmony vocalist, you have the opportunity to help the congregation hear other musical, vocal parts of a song.  This can aid those in your congregation whose vocal ranges vary from the lead vocalist.

• Gents, you have

The Communication Secret Your Church Needs

From the final Sojourn worship service at 930 Mary Street

Too often, church communications is all about event promotion, whether that event is a new class, sermon series, vision campaign, retreat, seminar or outreach festival. Then when the event is over, we’re onto the next thing.

If you consistently promote events as “a huge opportunity” or “can’t miss,” but you say nothing about the event when it’s finished, then you are unintentionally communicating that the event wasn’t a big deal after all. Over time, people will be less likely to believe that future events are “can’t miss” because nothing in the past turned out to be as special as what the event promotion led them to believe.

This is why we’ve posted recaps, photo blog posts, and testimonies following Sojourn Church events like our recurring Redeem Marriage seminars, baptism services, Fall Festival, campus launches, medical clinics and other events. And it’s why we took time to look back, even in the midst of looking forward, when our Midtown Campus left its original building for a bigger one down the street.

The first building Sojourn owned was originally a school building, built in 1906. We bought it nearly 100 years later, launching services at “The 930” in 2006. In the years since then we’ve outgrown the Sunday worship space, so we bought a former Catholic cathedral named St. Vincent’s, just two blocks from The 930. We’ve spent the last year on a massive renovation project. The new St. Vincent’s looks amazing, and the seating capacity is double the capacity at The 930 (which will remain our central staff office building and our meeting place for student ministry).

We’ve spent much energy promoting the launch of services at this new building, but we knew something would be missing if we

Prelude To Apocalypse: Worship & Wars Songs Post At The Resurgence

Our good friends at TheResurgence.com have published our new article “Worship Is A War Song.” We’re always honored to be featured at The Resurgence, a great website full of resources and articles for the universal Church. An excerpt:

When we sing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King,” Satan is filled with desperate fury “because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12).

When we sing “Holy is the Lord, God Almighty! The earth is filled with His glory,” the demons shudder because they know they are surrounded.

Read the rest of it here, and see a list of all Gilles articles published at TheResurgence.com here.

How Moses Can Improve The Quality Of Your Church’s Worship Songs

The Bible records two epic songs of Moses, the first of which occurs following Israel’s escape from Egypt and God’s Red Sea miracle.

Exodus 15: Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his riderhe has thrown into the sea…”

The song continues through verse 18. Then Moses’ sister Miriam decides to continue praising, so she leads the women in dancing and tambourines, while they reprise the song (Exodus 15:20-21).

Read the entire passage and you’ll see many poetic devices that we use today:

Metaphor:

“The Lord is a man of war …” v. 3

Simile:

“… they went down into the depths like a stone” (v. 5)

Anaphora (repetition of the same words at the beginning of successive clauses):

“Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,
your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. (v. 6)

And the content of the song itself, like those in the book of Psalms, recounts God’s salvific actions, admonishes God’s people to praise Him, and announces confidence that God will continue guiding, protecting and blessing His people. This is the kind of content that is useful for encouraging and admonishing God’s people as we dwell richly in the word of Christ, with thankfulness in our hearts (Colossians 3:16).

Like the examples we’ve talked about in the psalms of David and Mary’s Magnificat in Luke, the song of Moses shows attributes and historical actions of the one true God. It is not an abstract song that might be about our God or might be about a vague higher power or earthly lover.

The second Song of Moses is even more expansive in scope, enfolding over the course of Deuteronomy 31:30-32:1-44. In Leland and Philip Graham Ryken’s introduction to the 2^nd Song of Moses in the ESV Literary Study Bible, they write, “The order of sentiments follows the U-shaped pattern of literary comedy, with a descent into tragedy and a renascent to a happy ending.”

Over the course of this ballad, Moses praises God for his actions and attributes (32:4-14), confesses Israel’s sin (32:15-18), announces God’s judgment upon them and, more so, the pagan nations (32:19-33), reveals that God will deliver Israel and punish the wicked (32:34-42), and ends with an epic call to worship in 32:43:

“Rejoice with him, O heavens;
bow down to him, all gods,
for he avenges the blood of his children
and takes vengeance on his adversaries.
He repays those who hate him
And cleanses his people’s land.”

Besides being an example of how to worship God through song, this passage is a study in the use of poetic and rhetorical devices.

Songwriter’s Exercise:

Get our free Glossary of Poetic And Rhetorical Devices. Then read these two songs of Moses, notating all the uses of these writing devices that you can find. You can also do this for psalms, prophecies and the parables of Jesus. Gradually, you will begin to notice these devices more easily, and add them to your own songwriting toolbox.

And more importantly, follow scripture’s pattern of writing praise songs specifically to the God of the Bible. This doesn’t mean each song must be as expansive as the songs of Moses. Some Bible songs are the equivalent of a contemporary praise chorus, like Psalm 117:

Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!

But the scope of a church’s song catalog should aim to display, as best we humans can, the full wonders of Jesus and His love, the richness of God’s plan, and the range of the Spirit’s wisdom and power.

 

5 Foolish Reasons Why You Aren’t Sharing Your Christians Testimony

On our How To Write A Christian Testimony page, we quote Charles Spurgeon, who uses the phrase “singing in the night” as a metaphor for giving your testimony:

“Try and sing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in the entire world in favor of your religion … I tell you, we may preach fifty thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we will not prove it half as well as you will by singing in the night.”

Why then would we refrain from testifying of God’s goodness and grace in our lives? If you’re guilty of this — as we all are at some point — examine your heart to see which of these five reasons might be the culprit, and ask God to help you overcome by the power of His Spirit:

1. Your Fear Of Man Is Greater Than Your Fear Of God

Most of us struggle with the fear of rejection. We don’t want anyone to turn away from us, to insult us, to make us feel small or foolish. But Jesus says:

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. — Matthew 10:32-33

Fear of man is a problem for many of us. But the true disciple of Christ will ask for strength from Christ’s Spirit to overcome this. We know that God has saved us from a worse fate (hell) than anything that man could do to us — certainly worse than being mocked, ridiculed or ignored.

2. You Think Your Testimony Is Boring

As our pastor Daniel Montgomery says:

Excellence In Worship Leading: Is Your Heart In Awe Of God’s Glory?

Paul Tripp, teaching at our church Sojourn

I ‘ve been convicted lately — ever since reading Paul Tripp’s recent Gospel Coalition blog post God’s Glory, Our Excellence.  Although he was speaking specifically in reference to pastoral ministry, his encouraging exhortations also apply to our ministry as worship leaders.

Paul did such an excellent job relaying his challenging encouragement that, rather than paraphrasing it, I’d like to share some excerpts from the post here.  As you read these notes, keep in mind how readily this applies to worship leadership and ministry. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you and convict and encourage your heart to hold in greatest awe the glory of God. Ask Him to grip you with a tenacious desire to lead and serve with excellence for the glory of His beautiful name.  Specifically, consider if (and how well) you’re working out the three disciplines of excellence that Paul outlines below:

If your heart is in functional awe of the glory of God, then there will be no place in your heart for poorly prepared, badly delivered, pastoral mediocrity. We should all be shocked at the level of mediocrity we tolerate in the life and ministry of the local church . . . Mediocrity is a heart problem. We have lost our commitment to the highest levels of excellence because we have lost our awe.

Awe of God inspires, motivates, and convicts. . . Awe reminds you that God is so glorious that it is impossible for you, as his ambassador, to have ministry standards that are too high . . .I’m talking about a sturdy commitment to do everything you can to display the glory of his presence and grace as powerfully and clearly as you can each time his people gather.

You never are just doing your duty. You never are just cranking it out. You never are just going through the motions. You never are just putting on a front. You are worshiping your way through life as the ambassador of an expansively glorious King. And you are in reverential fear of doing anything that would dent, diminish, or desecrate that glory in any way.

Excellence in ministry flows

What The Psalms Can Teach Modern Worship Leaders & Songwriters

The 150 psalms in ancient Israel’s hymnal not only provide examples for us to follow in writing new songs, but they give us a wealth of source material. Some of the greatest hymn writers of the English language, like Anne Steele and Isaac Watts, wrote hundreds of “metrical psalms,” in which they applied English songwriting structures to these Hebrew poems, and “Christianized” the content. For instance Psalm 3:7:

Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
You break the teeth of the wicked

Became this at the hand of Watts:

Arise O God, fulfill Your grace
While I Your glory sing;
My God has crushed the serpent’s teeth
And Death has lost its sting

Watts put the four lines into Common Meter and he introduced rhyme. More importantly, as a post-Calvary writer, he introduced the cross. Whereas David and the other psalmists looked forward to their Messiah, we look back at the victory Jesus won for us. Hear Sojourn’s adaptation of Watts’s Psalm 3, “Death Has Lost Its Sting (by Rebecca Dennison) here:

Today, church songwriters mine the psalms to create some of our most widely sung praise and worship songs, like Chris Tomlin’s “King of Glory” (Psalm 24). And some churches have produced whole projects of songs based on the psalms, like Sovereign Grace’s 12-song Psalms record, Cardiphonia’s Psalms of Ascents project and The Psalms Project, a gifted community of musicians from the Netherlands who have composed modern arrangements for Geneva Psalm tunes from the 1500s.

The Psalms Answer Questions About Form And Content That Would Otherwise Bog Us Down

Q. Should our songs be long or short? Simple or complex?

Is Your Church Offering Too Many Choices?

In her landmark church communications book Less Clutter, Less Noise: Beyond Bulletins, Brochures and Bake Sales, Kem Meyer of Granger Community Church writes:

“In theory, more choices may lead people to find exactly what they want. But, research shows people actually feel worse. Too much choice leads to one of three results: regret, shutdown or paralysis.”

And this is what contemporary churches often give their people:

• Choices between “traditional,” and “contemporary” worship services.
• Sometimes even a third choice, usually labeled something like “mosaic,” or “ancient-future.”
• “Ministry Fair” styled choices between many affinity-based small groups.
• Church bulletins and websites overloaded with information, some of which isn’t even related to the church
• So many competing micro messages that the main message and vision of the church gets lost

In The Paradox Of Choice: Why Less Is More (How The Culture Of Abundance Robs Us Of Satisfaction), Barry Schwartz elaborates on the problem of too much freedom in the Western world. He provides case studies that back this thesis:

“A large array of options may discourage consumers because it forces an increase in the effort that goes into making a decision. So consumers decide not to decide, and don’t buy the product. Or if they do, the effort that the decision requires detracts from the enjoyment derived from the results. Also, a large array of options may diminish the attractiveness of what people actually choose, the reason being that thinking about the attractions of some of the unchosen options detracts from the pleasure derived from the chosen one.”

If you are old enough to remember, say, 1985, think about

Should Worship Songs Focus On Objective Truth Or Your Heart’s Response?

One argument against using old hymns in modern worship is that they focus on objective truth to the exclusion of subjective response. That is, they are all head and no heart, offering the worshiper dry doctrinal statements but providing no expression of emotion.

Kevin Twit has heard this argument. Twit is a pastor in Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), the college campus ministry of the Presbyterian Churches in America. He is also the founder of Indelible Grace, a movement to bring forgotten hymns into the church. Twit and Indelible Grace artists like Sandra McCracken, Matthew Perryman Jones and Matthew Smith have written new music and arrangements for hundreds of hymns, creating a series of worship records and an RUF Hymnbook.

When I asked him (in a recent My Song In The Night interview) if our hymn writing forebears went too far in writing theologically deep but emotionless lyrics, he said,