How music makes worship and how worship makes music in Evangelical churches

Music is a nearly universal feature of congregational worship in American churches. Congregational singing is so ingrained in the experience of being at church that it is often misunderstood to be synonymous with worship. For those who assume responsibility for making music for congregational use, the relationship between music and worship is both promising and perilous – promise in the power of musical style and collective singing to facilitate worship, peril in the possibility that the experience of the music might eclipse the worship it was written to facilitate. As a result, those committed to making music for worship are constantly reminded of the paradox that they are writing songs for people who wish to express themselves, as directly as possible, to God.
This book shines a new light on how people who make music for worship also make worship from music. Based on interviews with more than 75 songwriters, worship leaders, and music industry executives, Shout to the Lord maps the social dimensions of sacred practice, illuminating how the producers of worship music understand the role of songs as both vehicles for, and practices of, faith and identity. This book accounts for the human qualities of religious experience and the practice of worship, and it makes a compelling case for how – sometimes – faith comes by hearing.

"An insightful and well-researched examination of the creation of worship music in American evangelicalism and the worship music culture it has birthed. Kelman’s work is not just an analysis of religious and sociological scholarship—it is an experiment in understanding where he immersed himself into various corporate worship settings that span several years." - Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

"Fair-minded, nuanced, and thoughtful, this book is an excellent introduction to the process of creating and deploying contemporary worship music in evangelical America. It would be an excellent supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate courses on American religious history." - Religious Studies Review