Download Praise And Harmony
Codi Kollasch
Keith Lancaster's passion for singing has afforded him rare opportunities. As founder of the singing group, Acappella, he has sung, written, and produced music that has reached hundreds of thousands all over the world. Acappella\u2019s success led to additional groups and a wider variety of music, but these days he\u2019s spreading the harmony in another way. Since 2005, he's been operating the Praise & Harmony worship project, which includes church workshops, The Worship Leader Institute, and a worship album series. See what Keith's been up to right here at KeithLancaster.com!
For a successful SongFest, we urge the hosting congregation to prepare well in advance of the weekend by organizing weekly singing classes for learning the assigned songs. The participants, both beginners and seasoned musicians, should sit in sections to master the music. Ahead of the SongFest we distribute Ear Training CDs to the church, making it easy for everyone, regardless of musical experience, to isolate and memorize any harmony part. We distribute these discs one to every family (and often more than one per family) to promote song memorization throughout each week, particularly during commutes to school, work, etc. If the congregation masters at least a dozen of the arrangements ahead of time, we can focus the weekend on the valuable principles for establishing 100% participation in worship.
Praise and Harmony aims to reignite fervent congregational singing in churches globally. Unfortunately, four-part harmony has faded in many churches, and some members have even ceased singing altogether. Our purpose is to encourage all believers to "sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Colossians 3:16). There are several facets to this ministry:
The real danger here is that support for the simplification aspects of Harmony will turn into an out-of-context sound bite to imply support for all Harmony options by those who want to continue to make use of assignment.
I'm not sure people who agree with Ted Tso's and who are trying to highlight the benefit of simplification and publicly praise Harmony for the simplification work will continue to be authentic voices of criticism if they also speak out against specific Harmony options. Mixed messaging about Harmony won't help to push back against an encroachment of business interests on the interests and rights of contributors.
Harmony does nothing to address the trade-offs of giving entities proprietary re-licensing rights to contributed code. The devil remains in the details, even if the language is simplified. And I think everyone should be wary of championing Harmony in the abstract. And if you do decide to champion Harmony, go out of your way to be specific about which of licensing options to lift up.
-jef
Project Harmony decloaks Posted Apr 12, 2011 5:22 UTC (Tue) by skvidal (guest, #3094) [Link]
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans. mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
760c119bf3