An American Folk Songwriter Rediscovers the Psalms: Q & A with Wendell Kimbrough

Wendell Kimbrough is a songwriter and worship leader in southern Alabama who believes church music should simply be good music that forms us as we sing it together. Drawing on the sounds of American folk and soul music, Wendell writes scripturally-rich songs with singable, memorable melodies. His music has been embraced by a growing number of churches, young and old, large groups and small, contemporary praise bands and traditional choirs.

Date:

Thursday, November 10, 2016 from 3:30PM to 4:30PM (EST)

Location:

Recital Hall, Covenant Fine Arts Center, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Join this conversation between Wendell and John Witvliet, professor of music and worship and director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. There will be time for questions from the audience. 

Wendell’s newest album, Psalms We Sing Together, provides a collection of congregational songs that invite a powerful encounter with the psalms. The album emerged from a liturgical practice at his church in Alabama. Each week, Wendell creates a refrain for the congregation to sing in a form of call-and-response during the weekly psalm reading. This regular discipline of meditation—for the congregation and for Wendell himself—yielded an immense collection of music, emerging from a single congregation pressing into the wild, enormous, real-life experience of worship that we find in the psalms.

Held in the Recital Hall in the Covenant Fine Arts Center, Calvin College. This is free and open to the public.