This essay collection celebrates the richness of Christian musical tradition across its two thousand year history and across the globe. Opening with a consideration of the fourth-century lamp-lighting hymn Phos hilaron and closing with reflections on contemporary efforts of Ghanaian composers to create Christian worship music in African idioms, the ten contributors engage with a broad ecumenical array of sacred music. Topics encompass Roman Catholic sacred music in medieval and Renaissance Europe, German Lutheran song in the eighteenth century, English hymnody in colonial America, Methodist hymnody adopted by Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century, and Genevan psalmody adapted to respond to the post-war tribulations of the Hungarian Reformed Church. The scope of the volume is further diversified by the inclusion of contemporary Christian topics that address the evangelical methods of a unique Orthodox Christian composer's language, the shared aims and methods of African-American preaching and gospel music, and the affective didactic power of American evangelical "praise and worship" music. New material on several key composers, including Jacob Obrecht, J.S. Bach, George Philipp Telemann, C.P.E. Bach, Zoltan Kodaly, and Arvo Part, appears within the book. Taken together, these essays embrace a stimulating variety of interdisciplinary analytical and methodological approaches, drawing on cultural, literary critical, theological, ritual, ethnographical, and media studies. The collection contributes to discussions of spirituality in music and, in particular, to the unifying aspects of Christian sacred music across time, space, and faith traditions. This collection celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music.

Imagine if you could hear God speak. Imagine if you could sit down and speak to God about a wide range of subjects that are helpful to the Christian faith and have him respond to you. Matthew Robert Payne did exactly that over a period of time. He sat down and asked God to open up about the subjects covered in his previous book, Jesus Speaking Today. What follows is a number of intimate conversations with God. God shares his heart with Matthew in a way that is raw, honest, and candid. Peek inside the pages to see how God speaks to his friend who is interested in hearing from him. Listen in on these conversations as God gets personal and even emotional about the things that matter to him and that should ultimately matter to everyone. Matthew hopes that this book will encourage you to learn to hear from God for yourself and inspire you to journal what God says to you each day.