Conversation with Lester Ruth about "A History of Contemporary Praise & Worship"

Folks, I am over-the-moon excited to be able to share this conversation with Dr Lester Ruth about his most recent book (co-authored with Lim Swee Hong), A History Of Contemporary Praise & Worship. This pair did a shorter history on this topic a few years back (Lovin’ On Jesus), and in this conversation we get not only the broadstrokes of their findings but also a little bit of the behind-the-scenes work (spoiler alert: there was a LOT of it) that led to their very reasoned and very helpful conclusions in this most recent output. We do our best to give you an overview of the two major streams (one commonly known as “Praise & Worship” and the other commonly known as “Contemporary Worship”) that spring up in the earlier parts of the 20th century, and how those streams become raging rivers that eventually converge into a titanic flood that helps rewrite much of modern Christian worship practice in North America… and, indeed, the world.We also talk about Psalty the Singing Psalm Book, Colby the Singing Computer, and John Piper’s view on sipping coffee in church. Oh, and Lester mentions this one book (Doing Our Own Thing) as being quite important, FYI. Get full access to Marc Jolicoeur (aka Jolly Thoughts) at marcjolicoeur.substack.com/subscribe