THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG

For several years, I served as the song leader in my church. During that time, it was my responsibility to select the music and lead the congregation in the singing every week.

I took that responsibility seriously. The hymns and songs that I selected had to be doctrinally sound, and appropriate for worship with a God-centered worldview. Within those parameters, I tried to select music that would reinforce and support the text and the subject of my pastor’s messages.

Some of us have been singing the hymns for years; the words roll off our lips but the messages often don't engage our minds or penetrate our hearts. With the apostle Paul, I want the congregation to "sing with understanding."

So it has been my practice to select one hymn each week, research it, and then highlight it with a short introductory commentary so that the congregation will be more informed regarding the origin, the author's testimony, or the doctrinal significance of the hymns we sing.

It is my intention here, with this blog, to archive these hymn commentaries for my reference and to make them freely available to other church song leaders. For ease of reference, all the hymn commentaries in this blog will be titled IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Other posts (which will be music ministry related opinion pieces) will be printed in lower case letters.

I know that some of these commentaries contain traces of my unique style, but please feel free to adapt them and use the content any way you can for the edification of your congregation and to the glory of God.

All I ask is that you leave a little comment should you find something helpful.

Ralph M. Petersen

Please follow this blog to keep notified of new entries.









Sunday, July 2, 2017

Man-Centered or God-Centered Worship


"I've come up with a 'drive by' litmus test to get an initial take on whether a church's worship is man-driven rather than God-centered. If the sign in front of the church offers different styles of worship at different times or days (Traditional at 8:00, Contemporary at 10:00, Extreme at 6:00 PM, etc.), the worship at that church is almost certainly far more about pleasing man than about pleasing God.  This isn't to say that a church is wrong to have (multiple) services, but if they do..., accommodating differing personal tastes in music, etc., ought not to be the reason."


Dave Ulrick
Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)