Dr Paul Allen

What a tremendous need there is for prayerful, wise, mature, experienced, Bible-saturated, theologically deep leaders of worship. Being able to play the guitar or a piano and carry a tune is not enough to fit a person for one of the most important pastoral roles in the church. I think after the pastor who preaches regularly, the designer and leader of worship services is the most spiritually and theologically influential person in the church — for better or for worse. I begin with this emphasis — this call for prayerful, wise, mature, Bible-saturated depth and discernment in that role — because, as with most beautiful and precious things, the remedy for unfitting, inappropriate, foolish, tasteless things in worship services is not a rule book, but maturity and wisdom and the gifts of discerning proportion and balance and beauty and effect. What place is there for the intimate, personal ‘lover’ language in corporate worship?”  Each pastoral worship leader must discer...

What is a modern hymn ? Opinions vary but for the sake of this new playlist , we’re including songs that: Feature all (or mostly all) original lyrics . In other words, these are not old hymn lyrics that have been set to new music (often known as “retuned hymns.” We’ll do a special “retuned hymns” playlist at a later date. Feature lyrics that are set to regular “metrical” patterns. You can  read more about hymn meter here . Are either entirely made up of verses, or that rely on verses to carry the message or story, but also include brief choruses or refrains. Without any further adieu, here’s our  full Spotify playlist of  modern hymns  – 17 songs, over an hours’ worth of music. If you’re blessed by these songs, consider purchasing some of them as singles (or purchase the full length records from whence they come). And if you’re a worship leader , consider adding some of these songs into the rotation at your church! Related articles The Sacred In Betwe...