Praise the LORD!

One Psalm, three great hymns.  Read Psalm 117 in all its brevity, and then see how two different hymn writers interpreted it.  The hymns came from C H Spurgeon’s Our Own Hymn-Book. Psalm 117 Praise the LORD, all nations!  Extol him, all peoples!  For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of…

Morning Coffee

I sat outside on our deck this morning for the first time this year.  I had my coffee mug (which got cool very quickly, by the way), my Smartphone with its camera and Our Own Hymn-Book.  I marveled at the beauty of God’s creation, and the peace that can best be seen early in the…

A Sovereign God I Wish To See

There’s a precedent for our current practice of projecting the text for hymns and choruses on screens in churches today, and it’s not based on technology.  Most of the old hymnals from the 18th and 19th centuries had no music, simply lyrics, yet they seemed to get along quite well.  Their hymns frequently had more…

Page CXVI Update

Page CXVI is offering free downloads of their first Hymns album starting April 27th in honor of their second Hymns II album.  Neat naming convention, eh? It’s a pretty good set of songs, and well worth the cost of your time to download.  Then buy the new album while you’re there.

Debtor To Mercy Alone

Denise and I are doing the offertory at church tomorrow – she’s playing, I’m singing.  The song we’re doing is one of my favorite texts, and I referenced it in an earlier post.  The words were written by Augustus Toplady in the late 1700’s – 1771 to be exact.  The tune is by Bob Kauflin,…

On Worship

Here’s a thought-provoking blog entry by Zac Hicks on worship.  He’s actually giving thoughts on another person’s article, who was giving thoughts on Mark Driscoll’s book, The Radical Reformission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), but this entry is still worth reading. I haven’t read Driscoll’s book, but based on this brief review, it may be worth…

Please turn with me…

… to page 746 in Our Own Hymn-Book as we sing about the sweetness of gracious meditations on God’s goodness.  (Sung to the tune of “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”) When languor and disease invade This trembling house of clay, ‘Tis sweet to look beyond the cage, And long to fly away. Sweet…

Library additions

Two more books were delivered today, and I am really looking forward to working through them. The first is “Our Own Hymn-Book,” and it’s subtitled “A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public, Social and Private Worship.”  It was compiled by C. H. Spurgeon in 1866.  This version is a reprint by Pilgrim Publications, BOX…

Letter from Spain

Here is a prayer letter we received from Jim and Carolyn Fasold, our friends working with the Spanish Bible Institute.  It came via email, and I asked (and received) Jim’s permission to repost it here. IBSTE prayer letter 11. (We received this letter just before we learned that Carolyn’s mother died in Puerto Rico.)

Southern Gospel at its finest

Just got this card in the mail today.  This will be one concert we’ll be sure to attend.  If you plan to be up north on May 21, come hear Greater Vision at Gaylord High School, 7:00 PM.  You don’t want to miss this concert!