Yes, I mean it. You need to read this book. Not only that, you need to read it in a particular way, which is, out loud and to your children—or grandchildren or nieces and nephews or babysitting kids or whatever children you have within earshot. If you are so old and crotchety that you cannot… Continue Reading
This past week I spoke at the Wilds Christian Camp and Conference Center Music Conference. I was the keynote speaker for the pre-conference on Monday, I presented one general session, and I taught three workshops. Several people, both at the Wilds Music Conference and online, have asked for copies of my notes from sessions I… Continue Reading
I appreciate Joel Beeke, the pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids and the President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, for his ability to combine sound theology with warm devotion, while not undermining the former or distorting the shape of the latter. If you have… Continue Reading
My four-year-old son has been learning French recently. Well, sort of. We’ve checked out some children’s French DVDs from our local library, and each day he watches the DVD. It’s a silly little story that is spoken entirely in French. It comes with a little book that has screen shots of the different scenes and… Continue Reading
I have suggested in this series that in order to preserve the truth in our worship, we must be concerned about how we are shaping the imagination in the presentation of biblical truth. This is no more important than with our children. It is my fear that most Christians do not recognize that before a child… Continue Reading
Last week I argued that, if we are committed to conservative worship, it only follows that we should be committed to perpetuating conservative worship in the next generation. We want to continue developing this theme as we post at the Religious Affections blog. What hymns might we teach children? Before I name some specific recommendations, there… Continue Reading
We believe that the great Christian tradition of hymnody should be perpetuated. We treasure the invaluable contributions of the saints to our corporate and private worship in the great texts and tunes. Artistically, we admire the great hymns’ beauty and profundity. Intellectually, we appreciate their imaginative but careful communication of great Christian theology. Experientially, these… Continue Reading
Conservative Christianity, at its heart, is committed to preserving transcendent ideas rooted in the very nature and character of God. It seeks to accomplish this goal through the conservative of a tradition that has nurtured the expression of those ideas for ages. If our goal as conservative Christians is to conserve biblical worship and continue to… Continue Reading
So where does this leave us today? I will conclude with several brief suggestions of we should be striving toward in our choices of hymns for corporate worship. Recognize the importance of form. Form shapes content. As we evaluate the hymns that we sing, we must not be content that our hymns simply say the… Continue Reading
How can we conserve biblical worship? We can conserve biblical worship by regulating our worship by God’s Word, by learning to distinguish between ordinate affection and appetite and choosing worship forms that foster those affections for God, by cultivating those worship forms that have been nurtured within the community of faith, and by proactively transmitting… Continue Reading
Conservative Christians will be committed to transmitting these worship forms to future generations. This leads to my final point of discussion. If our goal as conservative Christians is to conserve biblical worship and continue to cultivate worship forms that best foster ordinate affection for God, then we must be committed to transmitting these worship forms… Continue Reading
We’ve been discussing the topic of teaching children to worship here for some time, and now I’d like to get your feedback. I’ve offered suggestions and examples of things I’ve done both at home and in our church to encourage God-centered worship among children, particularly with helping them learn and love classic hymns. What are… Continue Reading
I’ve just finished a week of vacation with family, so I’m getting caught up on e-mails, comments, etc. There were some good questions and comments on my post on teaching children hymns, so I thought I’d follow up here a bit. First, I stumbled across the philosophy paper that I distributed to all of our… Continue Reading
I recently received the following question via e-mail: I am the youth pastor at _______ Baptist Church in _______. I really enjoyed your article “Train Your Child’s Heart Before His Head.” My wife and I have begun to teach hymns to our children’s programs. I guess I’m wondering what you did, how you did it… Continue Reading
Children learn to worship God primarily through participating in rightly ordered worship. Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Any concerned, Christian parent is committed to training his or her child to be obedient to the Lord and His Word. From… Continue Reading
The only way children learn to worship God rightly is by observing right worship. Could it be that worship is such a mess today because previous generations did not expect their children to worship with their parents? I plan to consider this topic more in the coming days. Continue Reading
I spoke today at the Michigan Association of Christian Schools Teachers Convention. This is the lecture I presented. My task today is to convince you that it is important that music be a part of your classroom. My goal is to persuade you that music is essential to your students’ educational development. For some of… Continue Reading
Kurtz, Dean. God’s Word, the Final Word on Worship and Music, A Biblical Study. Self-published, 2008. 364 pp. $15.59. Purchase: Amazon ISBNs: 1606473239 / 978-1606473238 Author Bio (from the book): Dean Kurtz (BS Music Education; BS Bible; MA Sacred Music; Doctor of Ministry) has been passionate to communicate the Word about worship and music for… Continue Reading
The following are quotes from the first chapter of The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis: “Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact, that objects did not merely… Continue Reading
The purpose of this essay is not to argue that visual media is inherently evil. Nor is its purpose to contend that visual media lacks any value. The purpose of this essay is to prove that printed media is simply better than visual media, and when faced with the choice to choose one or the… Continue Reading