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Beating Time

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Songs for congregations

By Peter Turnbull

http://www.peterturnbullmusic.com

This is a CD collection of seven contemporary songs for congregational worship emanating out of Christ Church Fulwood in Sheffield.

The genre is drums and guitar accompaniment, not pipe organs. The lyrics are magnificently biblical and Christ oriented, covering both songs of worship and those challenging us to commitment and discipleship. It takes a little time to get into the music. The melodies are not catchy but perhaps more substantial than that given the weightiness of the gospel truths being handled.

It was great to see Timothy Dudley-Smith’s words being used on the first track, ‘To God our great salvation’. What a mine of treasures there is still to be brought to light from TDS’s lyrics being set to modern music. However, not all the tunes on the CD are new. Kingsfold (what a fantastic melody!) gets a run out here in the song ‘I will follow him’.

But for me the stand-out piece is the last track — ‘A thousand new mercies’. The music is reflective, the words are both comforting and challenging, unafraid to speak of God’s correction, as the song encourages us to keep walking ‘that old narrow way’.

The CD was engineered by the excellent Matt Dennis — not a bad musician himself — and free lead / chord sheets for the songs can be downloaded from the website.