Throughout the history of the church it has traditionally celebrated certain feasts in order to commemorate and remember portions of the biblical narrative. Through the years the number of feasts grew to burdensome levels. At the time of the Reformation there were close to fifteen major feast days, plus nearly every day marked a “saint’s […]
The Church Calendar and Evangelical Feasts Read More »
The Advent of Harmony and Polyphony In this lesson, I cover the advent of harmonypolyphony as well as the different kinds of music—from monophony to homophony to polyphony. Aspects of the Ars Antiqua, Ars Nova and notation are covered. In addition, I reference the idea of thematically linked compositions of liturgy and use the Franklin
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Sometimes a song and text just resonate with a congregation in unique ways. Such has been the case with this new setting of J.Edwin Orr’s text “Search Me, O God.” Although here at Cornerstone Presbyterian we use this song as a lead in to our weekly time of Confession of Sins, it could also be
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Codification of Church Music In this Sunday School Lesson on Church music from Cornerstone Presbyterian, we go through a quick overview of liturgical and musical reforms by Ambrose and Gregory, Augustine and Boethius. This includes the parts of the mass and how they were linked to Psalms and Scripture readings as well as the idea
A Short History of Music in the Church, Part 2 Read More »
Short pieces of service music such as the Doxology are a gift to the church. They are wonderful additions to both the liturgy of life and corporate worship. While it is more intricate than the Doxology, I was immediately impressed with Greg Wilbur’s “Franklin Sanctus,” which, in my opinion, should become a standard. In any
A version of the following article was published on Christward Collective. “God’s intention was to bless his people through the constant and conscientious observation of the [Sabbath], week after week and year after year. Believers are sanctified through a lifetime of Sabbath observance. In other words, the Sabbath is designed to work slowly, quietly, seemingly
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