Elvis imitator Johnny Cowling had more than 1000 people – many of them non-churchgoing teenagers – rocking in the aisles of one of England’s best known cathedrals at a Sunday service. "It was a fantastic service. We’ve tried country music and classical composers but never Elvis," Truro Cathedral’s Cannon Perran Gay told Ecumenical News International. "Most of Johnny Cowling’s songs ...

As a little two week old adopted baby from Sri Lanka cried and cried in her crib, her tremendously loving and amazing parents would play music through the night so she could dance herself to sleep. When shopping for shoes, it didn’t matter what colour they were or how many bows were on them…all that mattered was the sound they ...

CONTEMPORARY Christian music is a big industry. In the United States, it’s grown by 80 per cent over the past decade, with 43.4 million units sold in 2004 representing 6 per cent of total music sales – ahead of jazz, classical, Latin and soundtracks. No figures are available for Australia 10 years ago, but in 2004 Christian music sales here ...

Throughout my adolescent and adult life I have observed the continuing tension between traditional and contemporary styles of music. There is not always obvious hostility, but one doesn’t have to dig too deep to realise that everyone has their own strong opinion about what makes the best formula for worship. We are essentially creatures of habit. We like the hymns ...

IT IS POSSIBLE that when it comes to shaping our theology the music in our worship is far more influential than the word: spoken, read or preached. Protestant reformer John Calvin said music has a “sacred and almost incredible power to move hearts in one way or another” and Uniting Church Minister and hymn writer Rev David MacGregor would agree. ...

Churches has written to US President George W. Bush urging the lifting of sanctions on North Korea and also the use of diplomacy to replace an armistice signed on the Korean Peninsula in 1953 with a peace agreement. Anglican Bishop Park Kyung-Jo, president of the National Council of Churches in Korea said he had sent his letter on behalf of ...

A GREAT DEAL of information regarding the recent Assembly has already been distributed and you will find more at www.journeyonline.com.au. As you will see elsewhere, the whole week was notable for the quite superb planning and organisation provided by members of the local Planning Team, worship leaders, light and sound technicians, Synod staff, and a not-so-small army of volunteers from ...

Take My Life By Garage Hymnal Emu Music Australia RRP $29.95 Garage Hymnal’s debut CD is an “impressive” contribution to the worship song repertoire available to the Australian Christian church for a number of reasons. Take My Life is a collective work with its origins in 2004 in the band assembled for Sydney University’s Evangelical Union Annual Conference. The attractively ...

WE SING songs and hymns as an act of worship but the lyrics of the music can actually shape a congregation’s attitudes and missional practice. Ann-Maree Whelan, who has studied ecumenism with the World Council of Churches in Geneva, believes it is possible that some hymns, from another place and time, can shape our understanding of mission in our contemporary ...

The Uniting Church has decided against trying to reach consensus at present on a policy about homosexual people in positions of ministry and leadership. Members of its 11th Assembly meeting in Brisbane agreed they were “not of one mind” on the issue of accepting into ministry people who were living in a committed same-gender sexual relationships. They said that “notwithstanding ...