Republished with permission from Alex Mejias. Originally published at HighStreetHymns.com.

As a person who grew up in the age of CCM and “contemporary” worship, I had little exposure to traditional liturgies and “liturgical music.” I think the closest we came to using anything liturgical was when sang the Doxology (the “Old Hundredth”) as traveling music for the ushers after the offering. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that was the original intention of Thomas Ken, who penned those words back in the late 17th Century.

It wasn’t until after college that I had my first really full experience of traditional liturgy in spoken word and song. I had always had this image of stuffy Catholic services where people were being brainwashed to mindlessly repeat prayers and creeds. I never imagined that what I would find would be this giant collection of the most thoughtful and beautiful expressions of faith I’d ever encountered. I had been missing so much. Now I want to help churches find what I found and see meaningful ways to incorporate these prayers and songs into their worship. [Read more...]