New Piano Arrangement for By Grace Alone

I just wanted to let you all know that I replaced the Piano Score for By Grace Alone with a brand new version. It is a slightly more simplified arrangement that is on two staves instead of three and fits on one page. This is one of our most well-known songs and we pray that God will use this song, this arrangement, and most importantly the gospel of God's grace through Jesus Christ in this song, for His glory!

2009 Redeemer Conference for Pastors

I'll be attending and leading worship through singing at this year's pastors conference at my home church. The theme of the conference is The Minister's Fainting Fits: Depression and Discouragement in Pastoral Ministry and it will be held next week, May 4th and 5th (see schedule). I have the privilege of giving a pre-conference seminar both for those attending the conference who want to come a bit early and for any area worship leaders or pastors who might be interested (for free). The topic for the seminar is the same one that I'll be sharing about in August at the Worship God conference, "Reviving the Hymns." Here's the link to the information page. It will be from 4-5:30 on Monday, May 4th at Redeemer Bible Church. Here is my description of the seminar:

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Worship God Conference

I'll be attending the WorshipGod conference on August 5-8, 2009 at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. This is the biennial conference from Sovereign Grace Ministries. This year's theme is "From Generation to Generation" and here's the first paragraph of their description:

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New Website Up and Running

Welcome to the new Reformed Praise website! We are excited about the new look and functionality of our new Internet home. Some of the most notable changes are:

• Addition of The Tinder Box and The Workshop, places where songwriters can post their songs for the church
• New donation-based ordering. Everything on the site can be downloaded or ordered for free
• New contact page that lets you contact individual contributors directly
• Pop-up MP3 player that lets you build a playlist of your favorite songs
• A better search feature which searches everything in the posts, including song credits like original author
• Any many more... just check out the site!

A Sermon on “Crown Him with Many Crowns”

My sermon on Revelation 19, explaining the imagery of "Crown Him with Many Crowns," is now online here.

A Sermon on “Before the Throne of God Above”

My teaching through Charitie Lees Bancroft's hymn, "Before the Throne of God Above," is now available here.

A Sermon on “Amazing Grace”

Last Sunday, my sermon outline was John Newton's hymn "Faith's Review and Expectation" (which we know as Amazing Grace).

Find out why, here.

Psalms & Hymns of Reformed Worship

Psalms & Hymns of Reformed Worship is the modern-day version of the original "Our Own Hymn-Book" published by Charles Spurgeon's Metropolitan Baptist Church in the mid 19th century. It is a fully modern hymnal which purports to follow the ethos and style of the original. Just like OOHB, it features many hymns centered on our union and intimacy with Jesus. It also features many hymns by Charles Wesley, which is somewhat unusual in such an outspoken particular Baptist collection of hymns. It is the original hymnal that started Reformed Praise founder David Ward on the quest of writing new tunes to precious old hymn texts.


Buy the words only edition
Buy the music edition

Hymn of the Century

Ok -- so you were thinking that this blog was dead!

In April of 2008 (!), Stephen Nichols predicts the "Hymn of the Century." Thoughts, brothers?

On Taking the Lord’s Supper

Currently, we take the Lord's Supper together once a month. We pass out the elements and take them together as a family.

I'm not a fan of taking the Lord's Supper individually. Jesus instituted the Supper with his disciples corporately. We only see it practiced in the New Testament corporately. It seems best to be me that we celebrate the Lord's Supper as a body, just as we will celebrate the Marriage Feast of the Lamb as one body.

I don't think that this poses any tension between emphasizing communion with other believers and communion with Christ. I think that there is ground for saying that at least some aspects of my communion with Christ occur in and with my communion with the body of Christ. When we strip the Lord's Supper of its corporate setting, we are missing something very important.