1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
This is a conversation between Swee Hong Lim, Deer Park Assistant Professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College, and John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Swee Hong is a widely traveled leader for global seminars and conferences dealing with worship and sacred music. He is well-published in global music, including Giving Voices to Asian Christians (VDM Verlag, 2008). He is also a prolific composer of hymnody.
Swee Hong has recently published his new book Lovin’ on Jesus: A Concise History of Contemporary Worship (Abingdon Press, 2017), co-authored by Lester Ruth. Swee Hong also serves as the director of both the Master of Sacred Music Program and the chapel program at Emmanuel College.
Pastor-scholar Andrew Wilkes shares how his worshiping community, Double Love Experience Church, prayed and sang the psalms during the troubling times of 2020. The psalms gave them language and support for praise and lament, and Wilkes asserts that lament is the evidence of faith because we are bringing our troubles to God.
Author and pastor-scholar David Taylor shares how he came to appreciate the psalms and how he encourages people to bring their full, unedited selves to God in prayer and experience a richer and more honest life of faith.
Old Testament scholar Nancy deClaissé-Walford has spent her career studying the ordering of the Psalter. Most of the psalms, she says, are not tied to a particular situation, allowing us to sing and pray them honestly in our own contexts.
Pastor-scholar Andrew Wilkes shares how his worshiping community, Double Love Experience Church, prayed and sang the psalms during the troubling times of 2020. The psalms gave them language and support for praise and lament, and Wilkes asserts that lament is the evidence of faith because we are bringing our troubles to God.
Author and pastor-scholar David Taylor shares how he came to appreciate the psalms and how he encourages people to bring their full, unedited selves to God in prayer and experience a richer and more honest life of faith.
Old Testament scholar Nancy deClaissé-Walford has spent her career studying the ordering of the Psalter. Most of the psalms, she says, are not tied to a particular situation, allowing us to sing and pray them honestly in our own contexts.
A Psalm Talk by Jared E. Alcántara recorded at the 2026 Psalms 150 conference, with a visual prayer and embodied response from artist Dea Jenkins.
