Hymnprovisations

I recorded an album of piano music over the summer, and have given it the title Hymnprovisations. It is now available. I recorded it at Crooked Creek Baptist Church where I am a member and where I regularly play the piano. If you enjoy listening and you are local, I hope that you will join us some morning. While I’d say the greatest strength of our community is the fact that we are united in love without any sense that conformity in thinking is imposed, music is also a really strong point. We are also a diverse congregation and have been since we were founded in 1837. That makes us the third oldest congregation in Marion County, Indiana. At some point I hope to research the history of the congregation in more detail.

Have a listen to Hymnprovisations on your favorite streaming platform:

If you don’t have a way to listen on Spotify, Apple, or another platform that will share royalties with me, that’s fine. I’m not going to earn much from doing this, and that isn’t my aim. You should be able to listen on SoundCloud in that case. You can find the album here.

If you enjoy listening, please do let me know, as it will encourage me to keep doing this sort of thing! And please do come visit Crooked Creek Baptist Church for our 10:45 am service some Sunday morning. The improvised interludes are the kinds of thing you might hear me meander into on those occasions when I am playing the piano as a prelude to the service, while the hymn arrangements are the kind of thing I play during the offering or as “special music.” I also do a lot of arrangements of more recent songs and hymns, but since those are not in the public domain, I could not release them on an album. You’ll just have to come to Crooked Creek Baptist Church to hear me play in person!

One more strength about our congregation, if you like that sort of thing, is that the Sunday school class which meets at 9:30 am is taught by a university professor who is a New Testament scholar. Yes, me. It is a class where no questions are off limits. It may not be ideal for those who want someone else to do most of the talking and take them through a topic or text in a highly structured way. But it is perfect for those who are eager for the chance to notice details and explore their implications.

I hope you enjoy listening to Hymnprovisations. I’m hoping to re-record some of my own songs in connection with the upcoming release of my book Beyond Deconstruction: Building a More Expansive Faith which will be released by Eerdmans in February. (Baker Book House has it for pre-order at a discount!)

If anyone local would be interested in a book study about Beyond Deconstruction at Crooked Creek Baptist Church, let me know. I’ve already started to receive invitations to give talks in other places based on the book, and so it is going to be an exciting and busy year. If you’d like me to come speak at your church, university, or other venue, please do extend an invitation.

Coming up before that are appearances in October at Theology Beer Camp, the Carr Lecture at Mount Union University, and even sooner, a Westar talk about John the Baptist.

But you’re welcome every Sunday at Crooked Creek Baptist Church, where I teach Sunday school and also regularly offer…”hymnprovisations”!