New songs for modern missional worship, rich in Christian teaching and contextualized in modern culture. Contemporary hymns, psalms, songs of lament and praise written by members of the Louisville, KY-based Sojourn Community.

Welcome to the second installment of our "Why Do Worship Leaders Do That?" series, examining the top ten pet peeves that people hold against worship leaders around the world.  This top ten list is taken from informal blog polling by ragamuffinsoul.com, tabulated into the top ten by churchrelevance.com. See intro to this series for links to those article... Continue reading »

In today's churches, the guitar is coming to dominate the landscape in the same way that the piano and organ once did. It's important that as church musicians we give great care and thought to our guitar playing - everything from chord voicings to tones - so that the instrument is a servant of the congregation, not the star and ... Continue reading »

Sojourn will host an informal workshop for songwriters, focusing on how to write worship songs for children's worship, this Saturday, November 1 at 1 pm.  Although this workshop was primarily conceived for songwriters who are members of Sojourn Community Church (Louisville) for songs to be used in our Sojourn Kids ministry, all songwriters are welcome, as are those from other churches ... Continue reading »

Last week on sojournmusic.com we gave you the first inside peek at the production of our next worship CD, from the mix room in producer Neil Robins' studio.  This week, a little more: I recorded the first video below in the mix room as well, using my little Flip Mino palm-sized recorder (so the sound is rough).  You'll see Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper on bass guitar and David ... Continue reading »

This blog post is part of the church worship music set list Blog Carnival at fredmckinnon.com.  Photos by Dan Canales, from the evening services. 1. Eyes on the Prize, by legendary American folk singer Pete Seeger.  We did this one as the opener today, just as we did it as the opener of our set at Louisville's downtown ... Continue reading »

Joy To the World Lyrics by Isaac Watts, Music by Jamie Barnes F#m E/G# A D A/C# Bm Joy to the World, the Lord is come! D A/C# Bm Let earth receive her King; A E/G# Let every heart prepare Him room, D A/C# Bm And Heaven and nature sing, A E/G# Let Heaven and nature sing, ( F#m - E/G# - A D- A/C# -E/Ab ) Joy to the World, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills ... Continue reading »

I've been getting requests for Advent Songs chord sheets, like the chord sheets posted for Before the Throne and our other worship CDs.  Have no fear.  Thanks to Worship Arts Pastoral Assistant Jamie Barnes, I have all but two of the chord sheets from this album and will post them later today.  Then I'll post a link to the ... Continue reading »

The season of Advent, which marks the beginning of the Christian Year, will be here soon.  Worship planners, pastors and ministers of music will shortly begin to plan for Advent church services if they've not already done so.   At Sojourn as in countless church families, we begin our worship service with a "Call To Worship"... Continue reading »

[caption id="attachment_1253" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Worship leaders (L to R) Lorie King, Brooks Ritter, Rebecca Dennison"][/caption] As announced last Friday, today is the first in a series of ten weekly posts, which will come to you each Friday, to examine the ten most common questions and complaints that people have about worship leaders.  ... Continue reading »

This video comes to us from yesterday's session of the LEAD conference in St. Louis, Missouri, posted on Youtube by Shane Montgomery, Lead Pastor of The River Community Church.  He's featuring the video on his blog as well.  The blog also contains additional thoughts and information from LEAD, his personal story, ... Continue reading »