Liturgy and Worship Commons^™

Sing To The Lord A New Song: John Calvin And The Spiritual Discipline Of Metrical Psalmody, Brandon J. Bellanti

Music and Worship Student Presentations

Music has the power to shape us, to mold our thoughts and actions, to teach us. It is this truth that the Protestant reformer John Calvin recognized and sought to employ as he included the singing of psalms in his liturgy. In addition to corporate worship, Calvin encouraged his congregation to view the singing of the Psalms as a spiritual discipline; that by singing, people would be trained in holiness. To accomplish this goal, he worked to collect metrical psalms—psalms rewritten with meter and rhyme in the vernacular language—into a unified psalter that could be used in daily life.