1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2025 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
This vesper service features music from the soon-to-be-released Sending Songs album by the music collective Porter’s Gate. Created in collaboration with Fuller Seminary’s Worship for Workers project, this album offers songs that commission God’s people with mission and purpose into their places of work and play.
This service was originally presented at the 2025 Calvin Symposium on Worship.
Joslyn Henderon, Sandra McCracken, Wendell Kimbrough, Joel Littlepage, Isaac Wardell, Daniel Tavani, Orlando Palmer, Megan Tavani, Kathryn Ritsema-Roelofs, and Ron Rienstra
“Bring It to the Altar”
Text and Music: Paul Zach, Isaac Wardell, Leslie Jordan, Kate Bluett © 2023 The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission. CCLI #400063
“My Friends, May You Grow in Grace”
Text and Music: BENEDICTION; Stanza 1, 2 Peter 3:18; Timothy James Meaney and Sean Diamond; rev. Gregg DeMay and Gregory Kett © 1991, 2001 Wiseman Music; stanza 2, The Porter’s Gate © The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission. CCLI #400063
“Your Labor Is Not in Vain”
Text and Music: Wendell Kimbrough, Paul Zach, Isaac Wardell © 2017 Porter’s Gate Publishing
Used by permission. CCLI #400063
“Leave the Rest to You”
Text and Music: The Porter’s Gate © The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission.
“This Time Tomorrow”
Text and Music: The Porter’s Gate © The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission.
“The Breastplate of St. Patrick”
Text and Music: Wendell Kimbrough and Dan Wheeler © 2023 The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission. CCLI #400063
“Reformation Blessing”
Text and Music: The Porter’s Gate © The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission.
“Rhythm of the Kingdom”
Text and Music: The Porter’s Gate © The Porter’s Gate
Used by permission.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.
