Lent outlines the contours of the Suffering Servant’s servitude. Maundy Thursday – named, as it is, for the giving of the “new commandment” that we love one another as Christ has loved us – pivots on the occasion of the footwashing (John 13). Maundy Thursday’s washing and being washed creates in me a fresh hunger...Read More
A few years ago I took up samurai swordsmanship. It has not been easy, because the sword is not just about cutting stuff. It’s as much about how you move your body. My body doesn’t do Japanese well. When my sensei shows me what I look like to him, he bounces like Tigger and sways...Read More
Chris Alford (DWS, Alpha 2002) shares his journey of living out a passion for worship renewal that the Lord instilled in his heart through Bob Webber and IWS.Read More
The church I attend, Harvest Evangelical Free Church in Branson, Missouri, is doing something most members thought we never would: talking seriously about catechesis.Read More
By Rodney Shores Rodney Shores (D.W.S., Zeta 2005) serves as Pastor of Worship and the Arts at Tampa Covenant Church (Tampa, Florida), Assistant Professor of Worship Ministries at Trinity College of Florida (New Port Richey), and director of Voce di Vita, Le Petit Choeur, and Mannchor of the Gulf Coast Youth Choirs (Tampa). In January...Read More
David Neff’s June 2010 Commencement Address: I grew up in a congregation where worship was so Word-centered that it often tried to usher beauty out the door in the name of truth. It might have succeeded had it not been for my father, who loved choral music and believed that God was a god of...Read More
Occasionally, an ancient writer hits you with a jaw-droppingly fresh insight. The first theologian to discover the power of the idea of Jesus as God's "New Song" was Clement of Alexandria in the early 200's: "I have called Him a New Song."Read More
The purpose of the Alternative Response to the Word is to communicate our response to God as a result of having heard and received God’s word in worship. It is an acknowledgement that we have truly listened to what God spoke to the community through the Scriptures and the sermon, and that as a result...Read More
This past Advent, I began chanting psalms in my daily devotions. I’m doing so using the eight ancient plainsong chant tones that have their origins in the Gregorian musical revolution of the middle of the 1st millennium, as recovered and restored in the late 19th century.Read More
Rouault comes upon this old clown “mending his glittering and colorful costume.” He sees the jarring contrast of “brilliant, scintillating things, made to amuse us,” on the one hand, and the infinite sadness in the man’s unguarded face, on the other. “I clearly saw that the ‘Clown’ was me, it was us. . . . This rich and...Read More
A “new song” celebrates God’s deliverance from exile. Sometimes the song is the deliverance. Singing transforms experiences and changes perspectives. Such is the case with Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Divine Comedy…Read More
Ancient-Future Worship: Always Both-and, Never Either-or By Darrell A. Harris Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the IWS website in February 2009. “What has been before will be again,” my paternal grandmother said. She often saw the events of the past not only recurring in the present, but giving shape to the future...Read More
In the summer of 1999 when I was in the middle of writing With One Voice, the following summary article appeared in The Reformed Quarterly. For many of my friends the article served as an entrée into my thinking about the many voices through which our Singing Savior sings in his church. For a long...Read More
The following is an excerpt from Carla Waterman’s forthcoming book—All isWell: Feminine Graces in the Formation of Faith—available soon at www.lulu.com. This book explores five statements spoken by or to Mary, the mother of our Lord, “on the days when Gabriel is not conspicuous and the wise men have gone home.” The book seeks to...Read More
How do we know when to give up hope? As soon as the words had escaped my lips I knew it was a mistake. I should have spent just a few more seconds thinking about the question before I had opened my mouth. But it was too late. Download the rest of the article to...Read More
