David Ward, the founder of Reformed Praise, fell in love with hymn texts in 1999 when he took a trip to London and visited C.H. Spurgeon's former church, Metropolitan Tabernacle Baptist Church. While there he purchased the hymnal Psalms & Hymns of Reformed Worship, a modern version of Spurgeon's Original Our Own Hymn-Book. The hymnal's format as a lyrics-only edition immediately grabbed David's attention and caused him to begin reading and meditating on hymns for personal devotional value, not simply for congregational singing. At this point David had been writing songs about God's Word and the Christian life for several years, some of which were congregational in nature. As the texts from this new hymnal began impacting David, he sat down with his guitar to set them to tunes that were more like the contemporary praise songs he had been singing and leading. As he began sharing the songs with his friends and his local church, he received more and more encouragement to use them in public worship and to continue writing.

The following year David wrote the original ReformedPraise.org website to have a place to share his growing collections of updated hymns with others and with the hopes of someday giving other songwriters with the same passion a place to publish their songs as well. Since then he has been blessed to discover many other songwriters and churches or ministries doing the same thing. He even discovered that writing new tunes for old texts has been going on since the beginning of hymnody!

It is our desire that by listening to our songs or reading our articles Jesus would become more precious to you and your congregations. We pray that good theology would gain new life in the hearts of many as it is set to God's wonderful gift of music.

The Tinder Box was started in 2009 to give the growing network of songwriters David has met over the years a place to publish their own new and old hymns for the church.

Contributors

Jeff Bourque	Jeff believes that he was redeemed during a tornado warning in Kansas City, KS in 1983. However, he isn’t sure whether he believed God would save him from his sins or from the tornado. He’s still around, so God did both. He grew up in a more legalistic tradition, singing... (continue reading Jeff's bio)
Craig Johnson
Eric Schumacher	Eric does not remember a distinct "moment of conversion" but does recall being profoundly confronted with the truth of the gospel at a Campus Crusade for Christ Christmas Conference his freshman year of college. During his college years, he was introduced to God-centered theology, expositional preaching, and developed a strong... (continue reading Eric's bio)
David L. Ward	David currently serves as the Director of Worship Ministries for Redeemer Bible Church in Minnetonka, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis). His role includes planning and leading corporate worship, developing worship leaders, publishing resources for private, family, and small group worship, teaching and preaching, and pastoral care. He... (continue reading David's bio)