Becoming What We Sing

David Lemley is assistant professor of religion at Seaver College, Pepperdine University. He is also a contributing author and hymn editor in A Teaching Hymnal: Ecumenical and Evangelical.

Religious Studies Review "Lemley has written a book well-suited for both an academic study of Christian music and a theological one." "Both generous-spirited and critically nuanced, Lemley's interdisciplinary work is precisely the kind of scholarship that will help worship leaders to discern not just what kind of popular music we ought to be singing in our corporate worship but how popular music might uniquely form in us a cruciform identity--rather than, at its worst, pull us into musical and cultural inertias that fight against the demanding patterns of the gospel." -- W. David O. Taylor Fuller Theological Seminary "Sometimes authors write something that the church is ready for but doesn't need; other times they write what the church needs but is not ready for. David Lemley's convincing examination of the formational realities of contemporary worship music is a topic that's time has come: the church both needs and is ready for it. David Lemley succeeds in presenting an interdisciplinary, well-researched case for recognizing and embracing the obvious: not only that we are spiritually formed by the words and music of CWM, but also how it has become, in its own right, a symbol in Christian liturgy. This book will help us all move to the next level in valuing its effect on corporate worship." -- Constance M. Cherry Indiana Wesleyan University "It's terrible when a person gets older but refuses to mature. The same can be said for a way of worship. Lemley's Becoming What We Sing can help us avoid that problem with respect to the use of contemporary worship music. With an appreciative yet discerning eye, Lemley explores key issues in using this music wisely to form mature Christian disciples." -- Lester Ruth Duke Divinity School Dialog "[A] complex discussion which locates CWM in an "affective" category and relates it to the history, theology, worship, music, and life of the church beyond CWM's origins." Interpretation "The greatest strength of the book is Lemley's commitment to the sacramentality of contemporary worship music, the deeply liturgical nature of the contemporary worshipper's experience."