A Series on the Psalms

Our brother Mark Jones wanted to let us all know about a powerful series that pastor & author John Piper recently finished entitled "Psalms: Thinking and Feeling with God." You can access audio, video and more from the series here:

Psalms: Thinking and Feeling with God

John has been the teaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis for nearly 30 years and has written more than 30 books. He is known for his passion for God's glory and his commitment to expository teaching (case in point, he preached his way through the book of Romans over a 10-year period!). My first encounter with Dr. Piper was his book Desiring God and I have been benefiting from this teaching ever since.

I would encourage you to check out his series on the Psalms. As "lead worshippers" I think it's important that we engage our minds in studying Scripture - especially the Psalms, as they are the hymnbook of the Bible. Paul puts it this way: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2a). As we listen to God's Word being preached we invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds and touch our hearts. Because we are all involved in helping lead others in worship a series on the Psalms would be one to check out...

Here's what Mark says...

Long story short, he recently did a series on the book of Psalms and the last sermon in the series (6/29/08) was on Psalm 96 and titled "Declare His Glory Among the Nations". John ties in the role of singing and worship towards the later half of the sermon. The sermons are about 40 minutes long but are worth the time invested.

Thanks again to the man, Mr. MJ for the recommendation. By the way, if you guys have anything you think the whole team should see or would benefit from please drop me a line. I'm always happy to give credit where credit is due!

Vibrato - Video from Tim Carson

This post is for the vocalists - the sopranos, altos, tenors, baritones...

Vibrato: a repeated fluctuation of pitch; the slightly wavering quality that a singer has in his voice while sustaining a tone.

One of the issues that many worship teams face is the use of vibrato - how much it should be used, whether it should be used at all and the proper way to use it. One thing I have observed since coming to Living Word is that vocalists on our team are sort of all over the map when it comes to the issue of vibrato. For some of us it is our default - we use it more than we don't use it. For others we use it sparingly, if at all. When you have two or more vocalists approaching vibrato differently there is a high probability that things will collide - and not in a good way.

So, in light of the fact that vibrato is not only an important issue but one very relevant to our team I thought it might be helpful if all of us as vocalists would revisit it in the next months. Tim Carson, a vocal coach and former staff member at Willow Creek, has an excellent training video for vocalists. We'll be scheduling a time in September where ALL of us can watch it together in a workshop format. But, since that's a couple months away I wanted to whet your appetite by having you watch the following video. Note a few key ideas - especially what Tim has to say about vibrato in ensemble settings and whether or not he ever has to encourage more vibrato on teams.

It's a fact that as vocalists we pick-up both good and bad habits as we move through the years. I hope each of us can approach this issue of vibrato with an open mind and a willingness to assess our own tendencies. Thanks for taking the time to process this with me!