Recently after worship at First Baptist Church, Asheville, N.C., where I’m the interim minister of music, a choir member approached me almost as soon as the pastor had finished the benediction and said, “Doug, I’m scared.” Looking into this diminutive…
Hymns bear witness to faith and fear
Sitting and looking out on the frothy waves crashing on the rugged shoreline outside the window of our room at an inn in Depoe Bay, Oregon, these old words came to me: I was sinking deep in sin far from…
Living life ‘in the meantime’
I recently had breakfast with a colleague who finds himself wondering if he has one more move left in him. At the same time, he wonders whether he is now at an age when churches will simply pass over him…
We are all interims eventually
Last December my wife, Lori, and I officially joined Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, S.C., after attending worship for several months. I particularly was grateful for the music and worship leadership of a new colleague (and now friend), Suzanne…
Making peace with my internal worship war
Walter “Buddy” Shurden is an esteemed historian who taught at Carson-Newman University, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mercer University. In a series of lectures in 1980, Shurden described two broad streams of practice in Baptist churches he labels the Sandy…
How can we say thanks? Reflections on the influence of Andrae Crouch
The music of Andraé Crouch was the soundtrack of my life as a teenager and college student in the 1970s. “My Tribute,” “Soon and Very Soon,” “Jesus Is the Answer” and many others were songs I often heard at First…
Do the arts in church still matter?
Recently our daughter, Meredith, texted us a picture of two watercolors painted by our 7-year old grandson, Elijah. He has been watching his mother learn to use watercolors, and he wanted to try his hand. He traced the outline and…
Why church musicians become scapegoats in anxious church systems and how to make personnel changes gracefully
A church musician colleague and friend sat in my office across from my desk and told me this story. I still remember his halting words and his ashen face. He had been called to a new music ministry in a…