About Me
I am a self-professed worship geek, nerd, or wonk (chose your term). In other words, I love to talk about, participate in, and lead worship. I took my first worship class in 1990 at Kuyper College (Reformed Bible College when I went there), which was a major “aha” moment in my life. After graduating from Kuyper with a Bachelor of Religious Education I continued to study music at Calvin College and graduated from there with a BA in Music Education. During those years I worked with developmentally challenged of all ages, began an inner city youth ministry with a group of young adults, and worked with established church ministries. After graduating I taught for a year before becoming a youth director at a CRC out in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I wondered how God was going to bring all these experiences together when I entered seminary. When I graduated with an MDiv from Calvin Theological Seminary in 2003, that question was answered with a call to my current position as music and worship editor for Faith Alive Christian Resources.
As the music editor I have edited the music for educational curriculums, Friendship Ministries, and 5 songbooks. This means that I get to be in conversation with people as we together talk about and discern what various groups within the church and the church as a whole needs to sing to express their joys, sorrows, prayers, and praises. It is a great honor to be able to serve the church in this way, to listen, and then mould a songbook.
As the worship editor I have worked on several projects including the quarterly journal Reformed Worship. As a worship planner I relied on RW to provide me with thoughtful articles and useful resources and as an editor my challenge is to continue doing so, relying on the readers themselves to share of their treasury of creative gifts. Again I get to listen to the churches, take the gifts given and mould them into a useful tool for the church.
Joy,
You will be happy to know that a new Psalter of multiple settings of each psalm (in the order of the psalms) is on the way to the printer as we speak and will be out next January....