Church of the Servant is pleased to announce that Greg Scheer’s setting of Psalm 40, “Patiently,” has won the 2017 COS New Psalm Contest.
The contest, in memory of Ben Fackler, is in its eighth year and received 73 submissions. From this pool of many quality entries, Scheer’s “Patiently” became the judges’ unanimous top choice. Its melody is memorable and easily singable. The opening bars, with the repeated melodic motif and the harmonic movement away from D all gave a sense of waiting for something to happen. This was augmented by the unusual choice of beginning the song with an adverb – “patiently.” It perfectly expressed in text and music the hopeful (yet not entirely confident) sense in the Psalm of waiting for the Lord’s presence or action.
Scheer served as the minister of worship at Church of the Servant from 2005 to 2016, and we look forward to premiering his Psalm setting on Sunday, January 28, 2018, during our morning worship. We would be pleased if you would join us, especially if you’re visiting the Calvin Worship Symposium that weekend.
Thank you to all those who submitted a composition for this year’s contest. We were blessed to sing, discuss, and reflect on the submissions and were thrilled to have received so many strong compositions.
Thank you also to our judges, who volunteered many hours to make this process possible. If you would like to read more about our judging process, please visit our description of the process here: Judging Process.
COS and the judging committee are grateful for the generosity of the donors who have faithfully funded this contest for 8 years. If you are interested in donating to the New Psalm Contest please contact Larry Figueroa at music@coscrc.org.
You can stay up to date on COS Psalm Contest news or subscribe to our mailing list at www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/newpsalmcontest
Print and hear Greg Scheer’s “Patiently” (Psalm 40): PDF, MP3