I’m excited to announce the coming publication of my new book, Sound Worship: A Guide to Making Musical Choices in a Noisy World! This book is targeted for the average Christian layman.
My first book, Worship In Song, is a biblical approach to tackling issues related to music and worship, but it’s quite technical and sometimes difficult for laymen with no musical training to follow.
Sound Worship takes the main concepts of Worship in Song and delivers them in a brief, easy-to-read, engaging way. If you want answers to important worship and music questions without all of the research, footnotes, or technical jargon, Sound Worship is for you.
Here are the chapter contents:
chapter one
Does Music Matter?
chapter two
Is the Bible Enough?
chapter three
Why Do We Sing in Church?
chapter four
How Does Music Communicate?
chapter five
Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?
chapter six
What Happens on Sunday Morning?
The book is scheduled to be released in January, 2010.
Visit the book’s web site here.
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Donate toward this publishing project here.
For any size donation (and we really mean any amount), you will receive a free copy of the book once it is released. All donations are tax deducible as well.
Here is the introduction to the book:
Music is everywhere. It’s in your car. It’s in your home. It’s on your TV. It’s on your iPod. It’s at the mall. It’s at the restaurant. It’s at amusement parks, parties, fairs, family reunions, and barbecues.
And music is at church.
You have choices. Never before in the history of mankind have there been so many music choices. With relative ease you can choose where to listen to music, when to listen to music, how long to listen to music, what artist to listen to, what style to listen to, what song to listen to, and how many times to listen to it.
What you can’t choose is to not choose.
This is a book about making musical choices. But not just any choices. This is a book about making musical choices that are deliberately informed by the Word of God. It is about making choices that are discerning, wise, beneficial, and edifying.
This book is about making musical choices that will bring glory to God.
We live in a day of relativism, individualism, and pragmatism. Each of these vices presents significant challenges for making God-pleasing musical choices. Relativism teaches us that there is no right or wrong music. Individualism teaches us that we can choose whatever we happen to like. And pragmatism influences our theology of the church and convinces us to cater to the music preferences of the masses in order to draw them to our services.
Making musical choices in our society is no easy task, but it is a task we must face well-informed and well-equipped.
As a former pastor, music director, and now the director of a ministry that seeks to help equip and inform believers for this task, I have a strong burden that we think biblically about these issues. In January of 2009, BMH Books released my first book titled, Worship in Song: a Biblical Approach to Music and Worship. In that book I attempted to present a biblical, thoughtful, well-researched presentation of theological and philosophical ideas that would help believers understand music and worship.
Worship in Song specifically targeted pastors and other Christians who really wanted to understand the foundation issues influencing worship and music philosophy. This means that the book is somewhat technical for average Christians, especially those who have little theological or musical education.
Sound Worship, on the other hand, was written specifically for you. I have taken what I consider to be the most important questions behind today’s debates and sought to answer them in a brief, engaging, clear way. You won’t find many technical details in this book unless they are absolutely necessarily. I have tried to explain and illustrate important points with examples with which you can readily identify. If you want to understand the research and technical explanations of any of the points in this book, pick up a copy of Worship in Song. This book is intended to give you a starting place.
My prayer is that this book will help you wade through all of the myriads of musical choices you have for life and corporate worship. My prayer is that you will have what you need to make musical choices that truly glorify God.
About Scott Aniol
Scott Aniol is the founder and Executive Director of Religious Affections Ministries. He is director of doctoral worship studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in ministry, worship, hymnology, aesthetics, culture, and philosophy. He is the author of Worship in Song: A Biblical Approach to Music and Worship, Sound Worship: A Guide to Making Musical Choices in a Noisy World, and By the Waters of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture, and speaks around the country in churches and conferences. He is an elder in his church in Fort Worth, TX where he resides with his wife and four children. Views posted here are his own and not necessarily those of his employer.
