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, Living Righteously. More of his books are available here.
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.
The beautiful polyphonic music of the Renaissance also greatly appealed to me, especially in it’s incarnation in the music of the Reformation, which marked the re-introduction of personal songs of faith into the church, sung not just by a trained choir, but by the whole congregation (and in their own language!). A few samples of the historical development of Protestant hymnody are included in the section: The Protestant Reformation.
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.
Many 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 clear teaching contained in these new songs testifies loudly to the fact that God has revived His message on the earth again.
The next section of this website is devoted to Sacred Poetry. It contains new poems on the themes of present truth, or pertinent poems from the past. This section will contain “words only”, but viewers should feel free to set any of these to music, if they have the ability. Also in this section is a short tribute page to Wilson MacDonald (1880-1967), a fellow-Canadian, excellent poet and philosopher, and great humanitarian.
The final section of the site contains Articles. These are about the history, theory, and practice of music. Music can be a great power for good or evil. The articles in this section will try to divide between the good and evil use, and point out the Biblical standard.
