Sing! has grown from Keith and Kristyn Getty’s passion for congregational singing; it’s been formed by their traveling and playing and listening and discussing and learning and teaching all over the world. And in writing it, they have five key aims: • to discover why we sing and the overwhelming joy and holy privilege that comes with singing • to consider how singing impacts our hearts and minds and all of our lives • to cultivate a culture of family singing in our daily home life • to equip our churches for wholeheartedly singing to the Lord and one another as an expression of unity • to inspire us to see congregational singing as a radical witness to the world They have also added a few “bonus tracks” at the end with some more practical suggestions for different groups who are more deeply involved with church singing. God intends for this compelling vision of His people singing—a people joyfully joining together in song with brothers and sisters around the world and around his heavenly throne—to include you. He wants you,he wants us, to sing.

Contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship itself. Author Monique M. Ingalls argues that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations, or "modes of congregating". Through exploration of five of these modes--concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations--Singing the Congregation reinvigorates the analytic categories of "congregation" and "congregational music." Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology and congregational studies, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice--in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as "worship." "Congregational music-making" is thereby recast as a practice capable of weaving together a religious community both inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a powerful way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The interactions among the congregations reveal widespread conflicts over religious authority, carrying far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.

In this addition to the 9Marks Building Healthy Churches series, Matt Merker explores the biblical understanding of corporate worship as an activity where God gathers the church by his grace, unto his glory, for their mutual good, and before the world's gaze.

Christian Congregational Music explores the role of congregational music in Christian religious experience, examining how musicians and worshippers perform, identify with and experience belief through musical praxis. Contributors from a broad range of fields, including music studies, theology, literature, and cultural anthropology, present interdisciplinary perspectives on a variety of congregational musical styles - from African American gospel music, to evangelical praise and worship music, to Mennonite hymnody - within contemporary Europe and North America. In addressing the themes of performance, identity and experience, the volume explores several topics of interest to a broader humanities and social sciences readership, including the influence of globalization and mass mediation on congregational music style and performance; the use of congregational music to shape multifaceted identities; the role of mass mediated congregational music in shaping transnational communities; and the function of music in embodying and imparting religious belief and knowledge. In demonstrating the complex relationship between ’traditional’ and ’contemporary’ sounds and local and global identifications within the practice of congregational music, the plurality of approaches represented in this book, as well as the range of musical repertoires explored, aims to serve as a model for future congregational music scholarship.

How music makes worship and how worship makes music in Evangelical churches Music is a nearly universal feature of congregational worship in American churches. Congregational singing is so ingrained in the experience of being at church that it is often misunderstood to be synonymous with worship. For those who assume responsibility for making music for congregational use, the relationship between music and worship is both promising and perilous – promise in the power of musical style and collective singing to facilitate worship, peril in the possibility that the experience of the music might eclipse the worship it was written to facilitate. As a result, those committed to making music for worship are constantly reminded of the paradox that they are writing songs for people who wish to express themselves, as directly as possible, to God. This book shines a new light on how people who make music for worship also make worship from music. Based on interviews with more than 75 songwriters, worship leaders, and music industry executives, Shout to the Lord maps the social dimensions of sacred practice, illuminating how the producers of worship music understand the role of songs as both vehicles for, and practices of, faith and identity. This book accounts for the human qualities of religious experience and the practice of worship, and it makes a compelling case for how – sometimes – faith comes by hearing.

Quick, before you make another move, pastor, read this Journal!If you're thinking of leaving your church for another, start with Michael Lawrence's article on leaving wisely. In fact, look at Matt Schmucker's even before you think about leaving. Have you looked yet? Okay, what about now? I've seen enough pastors come and go to know that Lawrence and Schmucker just might shift your paradigm.Or maybe the process of searching has begun. Mark De-ver, Bobby Jamieson, Walter Price, and Dennis Newkirk will help you to avoid common mis-takes and pursue the next pastor wisely.Then again, maybe you should not make a move at all. Jeramie Rinne and Mark Dever will tell you why. Pastor Rinne, in fact, would rather see you dead right where you are. What a pastor!