Thursday’s first full session was presented by John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, MI. Much of what he had to say was a condensation of his book, The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship, published by Eerdmans. All conference attendees who pre-registered received a copy of the book.

I’ve provided some of my notes from his session below with little context.

• The CRC tradition has largely abandoned psalm-singing – a practice which once characterized it.
• John Calvin: When we sing the psalms, we are certain that God has put the words in our mouths.
• 5 significant challenges to vibrant psalm singing:
1. Operative Theology of Worship in North America that sees worship as expressive and not formative.
• Increasingly in North America, we see worship as expressive.
• Sometimes we need to be formed to say something we wouldn’t otherwise say.
• The Psalms will form in us ways of relating to God that we otherwise wouldn’t express.
2. The Connection between psalm singing, psalm teaching and psalm preaching
• Sometimes even the most familiar psalms can become too familiar.
• Psalms can help us accomplish the point of the sermon.
• “What psalm would this sermon lead us to pray more intently?”
3. How do our psalm setting do justice to the forms of the Psalms themselves?
• Much Praise and Worship music strips verses out of their contexts.
• Exclusive Psalmodists do this as well, however, by eliminating verses or sticking to the same melody for singing when the emotion radically changes.
• For example, the meaning of Psalm 22 comes from the movement of one section to another.
4. The Untidy parts of the Psalter
• The parts of the Psalter we don’t know how to sing, i.e. the imprecatory Psalms: Psalm 25 – the judgment of the treacherous, Psalm 137 – the destruction of infants of the enemies of the people of God.
• We should sing every verse of the Psalter but we should not do so on auto-pilot.
• Some psalms we pray in solidarity with other Christians.
5. Appreciate the work of other Christians in apprehending the Psalms
• Modal and sacred harp tunes have an ambiguity that can express a wide range of emotions and are wonderful for psalm singing.

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