Having served on the committee that created Lutheran Service Book and being a church music director, Mark Bender has a complex understanding of how music functions in the Divine Service. Mark also has published more than a dozen compositions with CPH Music. Hear from Mark himself about how he chooses music for worship and what tools he recommends to his fellow music directors.

Composer Jacob B. Weber began his musical journey as a piano student in first grade. He later studied church music and organ at Bethany Lutheran College and completed the master of church music degree at Concordia University Wisconsin. He was the kantor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church and School in Dearborn, Michigan, where he planned worship, played organ, led ensembles, and taught music at the K–8 school. Now, Jacob is the associate editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House. Jacob has published more than thirty works with CPH Music, including four new pieces this year. Get to know him by reading our interview with him below.

Our guest author for today is Lisa M. Clark, Senior Editor for Curriculum Resources at CPH. Although you may know her best as a hymn writer and the author of the Messengers novels, one of her latest projects has been working on CPH Education’s new musical, Echoes of the Hammer. In today’s post, Lisa shares more about her creative process as the lyricist for the musical.

Every artist knows that the details matter, and composer Timothy Shaw’s detail-oriented nature is probably one of the things that has made his music career so successful! Taking pleasure from things many other people may not notice, like a perfectly engraved musical score or a key change in one of his compositions, Timothy has composed more than a dozen pieces for CPH. Read our interview with Timothy and visit his author page on CPH.org to learn more about all of his compositions with us.