It is a question Christians often ask: What is the relationship between obedience and joy? I was asked about this during a recent Ask Me Anything event in Philippines (which followed a sermon I gave that focused on Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”). Here is…
I love writing book reviews and I love reading them. Since I cannot possibly read and review all of the interesting books out there, I publish occasional round-ups of reviews written by other writers. Or even if I am able to review the book, it’s always good to get a second opinion. So here are…
While most of what finds its way into my mailbox is books, I also receive a surprising amount of music. This works out well since I happen to love listening to music while going about my daily work. Here are a few new and noteworthy albums you may want to take a look at. Hymns…
While most of what finds its way into my mailbox is books, I also receive a surprising amount of music. This works out well since I happen to love listening to music while going about my daily work. Here are four recent releases I’ve been enjoying–two albums of acoustic traditional and modern hymns and two…
The Hymn Sing – To celebrate a successful Kickstarter campaign that has funded a new album, Indelible Grace has released their live album The Hymn Sing on NoiseTrade. It’s there for free or for a donation of any amount. Polygamy in the Bible – The Briefing has an article about polygamy in the Old Testament.…
Today is the 224th anniversary of the death of Charles Wesley, one of history’s most well-known and best-loved hymn writers. His contributions to the English-speaking church are remarkable, which becomes apparent when you read the introduction to his brief biography at ChristianHistory.net: He was said to have averaged 10 poetic lines a day for 50…
Yesterday we went to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum and stood before an Avro Lancaster bomber–one of only 2 in the world that remains operational. It was huge, it was imposing and it was strangely moving. Around 7500 of them were built during the war. 2 remain. It’s a near-priceless bit of history. Songs &…
One of the happier musical developments in the Christian world over the past few years has been the resurgence of hymns. Though there are many contemporary worship songs that have excellent content and are ideal for congregational worship, we just can’t afford to lose the hymn. There are two different kinds of contemporary hymn. In…
Today’s guest blog comes courtesy of Matthew Smith. Matthew is a singer-songwriter from Nashville who takes old hymn lyrics and sets them to new music. He is a founding member of the Indelible Grace community, and tours full time, playing concerts of hymns at churches. I blogged here last week about his new song “Goodnight,”…
What a week. Going to conferences is great, but I always return home half dead (at best). Late nights at restaurants and early-morning meetings always sound great three weeks out. But they demand a cost. Nevertheless, Together for the Gospel was great, even if I haven’t yet recovered. Let’s talk about this week’s Free Stuff…
I wanted to draw your attention to a few albums that I’ve been enjoying recently. Each of these albums features music that is appropriate for corporate worship and each features selections of modern or ancient hymns. Each of them is worth buying and listening to. All of the albums are available through iTunes (where I…
The band All Star United has released some good and fun songs over the years. Unfortunately I’ve sometimes found them to toe the line a little bit with their humor. On the whole, though, they write some memorable songs and songs that tend to speak to some of the trends in the Christian world. They…
There is an old phrase which states “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Yet this is no mere cliche when it comes to hymns. Over the past few years worship music has taken the Christian music world by storm. Artist after artist, band after band fed the craze by releasing albums of praise music, some…