Kalamazoo, Michigan  ·  Reformed Baptist Church

When Jon Hutchins described his process of Psalms songwriting to Scriptura staff member Katie, she stopped him. He had been explaining how he approaches each psalm: understanding what the original poem was doing — its emotional function, its movement, its climax — and then asking how to achieve that same function in a contemporary Western musical form.

Katie recognized it immediately. It was exactly the methodology ethnoarts experts teach in international workshops. She was, at that point, preparing to train musicians from four or five Asian traditions in precisely this process. She told him: “You’re doing what Christians all over the world are trying to do, which is make these work in their culture.”

Jon had arrived at the methodology on his own, working in Michigan, trying to write songs his church could sing. A musician in an online community had independently used Scriptura’s materials for the same purpose — her project ran out of funding and stopped. There are people all over the world trying to bring the Psalms home to their communities. Scriptura’s role is to give all of them better tools — and to connect dots they don’t yet know exist.