Name: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z8iYEoiM6Y8?feature=oembed
Uploaded: 2012-02-20T00:00:00-05:00
Description: Mike Cosper, Isaac Wardell, and Kevin Twit talk about contextualization, retuned hymns, and the current climate of pop music shapes the way the church sings

Choosing songs is a pastoral task. The songs we sing and the way we sing them shape the way our congregation understands the gospel of Jesus Christ. In singing, we marry texts and music, communicating truth through a particular aesthetic—a particular cultural lens.

In this second discussion with Isaac Wardell and Kevin Twit, we talk about contextualization and retuned hymns. How does the current climate of mp3s and pop music shape the way the church sings? How can we take advantage of the resources already available to help people to sing? On the other hand, how does context shape the way we make decisions about the songs we sing and the songs we don’t sing?

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We also consider Wardell’s provocative question of why church leaders talk so much about contextualization when no matter where you travel, you see them wearing the same clothes and hear the signing the same songs.

Mike Cosper is the founder of Harbor Media in Louisville, Kentucky and serves as the director of podcasting for Christianity Today and is the host of Cultivated: A Podcast about Faith and Work. He is the author of Faith Among the Faithless: Learning from Esther How to Live in a World Gone Mad (Thomas Nelson, 2018), Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World (IVP Books, 2017), The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long for and Echo the Truth (Crossway, 2014), and Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel (Crossway, 2013). Mike lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, Sarah, and their two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter.

Isaac Wardell is director for worship arts at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Isaac studied music at Covenant College and worked as director of music at churches in Tennessee, Georgia, and New York, before coming to Trinity in 2009. He also works as the director of Bifrost Arts.

Kevin Twit has been the RUF Campus Minister at Belmont University since 1995. He previously served as a pastor at Christ Community Church for eight years. In 1999 Kevin began Indelible Grace Music with some of his students and has lectured widely on topics of hymns and worship.