Good Shepherd Band

Phil Moyer directs the choir of ClearNote Church, Bloomington last Lord's Day singing "Ride On, King Jesus!" (TB)

Our Good Shepherd Band is giving away a free track today from their forthcoming Christmas album, Repeat the Sounding Joy. This is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” like you’ve never heard it. And I’m not just referring to the pizzazz-y arrangement. There’s actually a whole verse making its world debut here. Well, sort of.

Originally, “Hark!” had ten four line stanzas. Thanks to George Whitfield, who took the liberty of tweaking and republishing Wesley’s hymn (much to Wesley’s chagrin), most of us know “Hark!” in Whitfield’s revised, three-verse form. For their own rendition, the band harkened back to Wesley’s original and constructed a hybrid fourth verse from portions of his seventh through tenth stanzas. Here is that “new” verse…

Woolery Stone Mill is the limestone mill where the Empire State Building's facade was cut; also where Breaking Away's mill scenes were shot. The place is now largely abandoned but there are two connections to ClearNote Church, Bloomington, that might interest readers.

First, about ten years ago our head elder, J Lee, and I went through the mill and it's office building considering purchasing them both to house our church and a church-school. Given the massive scale of the mill, though, we gave it up. Now we have a 220 acre farm, instead. (Yes, I'm chuckling.)

More recently the mill was the site where this glorious video recording of Mary's Song was filmed. It's a high definition video and it serves as the perfect introduction to the CD, Repeat the Sounding Joy, released a week ago. What a fitting setting for Mary''s Song--outside/inside a stone mill, with crickets.

Give a listen to the video. It you knew the musicians, the video might bring tears to your eyes as it does to Mary Lee's and mine. Tears of joy for God's kindness in allowing us to be led in worship each week by humble men and women who, like Mary, are wonderful instruments of God's grace in our lives. Gloria!

Here's an excerpt from another review of Good Shepherd Band's Repeat the Sounding Joy:

"Until three weeks ago I had never heard of the band from Bloomington, Indiana, but currently this album holds a firm spot in what I consider to be the most Christ-centered and worshipful of Christmas records.

"In a season where vapid holiday fluff by the likes of Mariah Carey can be heard cycling the local radio stations, Repeat the Sounding Joy is a welcomed proclamation of the coming of Jesus put to creatively beautiful musicianship." (read on)

If you haven't yet bought a copy for yourself or your loved ones, why not do it now? (TB)

To reform the Church is to reform her worship.

Everything about our worship indicates our reverence, zeal, and love toward the Triune God; or alternately, our flippancy and indifference. Hearts aflame for God cry out for men to preach the Word, read Scripture, pray, and sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with zeal. Sadly, though, worship today is aimed at the mind or the heart. It's intellect or passion--never both. When there is zeal, it's rarely "in accordance with knowledge." And those claiming knowledge make a principle out of their absence of zeal.

Five hundred years ago, John Calvin worked to reform every part of the Church's worship. We must give ourselves to this same work today.

That's why I'm very thankful to announce ClearnoteSongbook.com. The men behind the Songbook--Jody Killingsworth, Philip Moyer, and the Good Shepherd Band, along with Ben Crum, Joseph Bayly, and Lucas Weeks--have put together a site that is a call to reform our worship. The Clearnote Songbook is jam-packed with goodies to help in that work...