This site is dedicated to Christian Poetry and Music, with particular emphasis on the theme of the return of Jesus Christ and the events leading up to it.
I am a member of the Sabbath Rest Advent Church, a small group that developed out of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the early 1960′s, through the ministry of Fred Wright (1926-1997). Fred Wright’s gospel message is most clearly covered in his first book, which I have placed on archive.org for any who are interested. The book is called Living Righteously. More of his books are available from the Sabbath Rest Advent Church website.
Since becoming a Christian in my early 20′s (back around 1985), I was always interested in music. Having left behind a rock band when I was converted, I re-educated myself in music by listening to many different styles of historical music (renaissance, classical, etc), as well as world folk music. I was hoping to find something more challenging than the Victorian revival hymns that comprised much of the material in the standard hymn books. This search led me to discover the early American shape-note tradition, which is represented on this website in the section: Early American Hymns.
Naturally, being an Adventist, I was also keenly interested in the music of the Advent revival of the mid-1800′s, especially the American revival which developed the group known as “Millerites”, as well as the first songbooks of the early Seventh-day Adventist church, which grew out of the Millerite movement. These are represented by a few PDF’s of early songbooks in the section: Adventist Poetry and Hymns.
Over five years ago, I was involved in preparing a songbook for our church, Songs of Hope and Trust, which was comprised mostly of new material. The songs divide roughly into three classes:
- Songs based on spiritual themes that we had studied over the years;
- Scripture songs using verses that were important to those themes;
- Early advent songs for which we only had the words, but then wrote new music to fit.
Many of these songs are presented here, for the free use of any who are interested.
The last section of this website (which is not completed yet) will be devoted to Sacred Poetry.
