Welcome to Evensong Worship Resources

Welcome to Evensong – a website from the west coast of Canada dedicated to fresh, Spirit-filled music for the liberal Christian church, all of it free for downloading and sharing in your community. Our music is registered with www.ccli.com and www.onelicense.net, so if you have a copyright license, please record all use. Thank you!

We have over 300 songs currently in our catalogue, with many more yet to upload and new songs being written all the time. Overall, we have at least one song (and often multiple songs) available for every Sunday in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary, and also for many of the festivals.

Our music is largely scriptural in language and theme, coming out of the readings for the day, and includes many psalm refrains and shorter chants, as well as hymns, songs and anthems, all of it keyed to the lectionary readings for the week. You can also search for music using the scripture index, or search for themes by entering a term such as “lament” or “joy” in the Keywords search box. If you’ve heard a song of ours and just want to find it, try searching for a word or phrase in the Lyrics search box. And if you still can’t find what you’re looking for, contact us!

For those of you who use social networking, you can get all our website, music and event updates through Twitter and Facebook.

A communion set for the Earth

A few years back, I started working on a communion set which would reflect a more Creation-centred theology, a set still rooted in the historic Trinitarian formulas of our tradition, but re-interpreted through an environmental lens. The first composition was a simple, layered setting of a text reflecting the character and language of the historic Sanctus or “Holy, holy, holy”. I followed this with a reframing of the Memorial Acclamation and, recently, a Great Amen to complete the set, all with similar musical material to make it cohesive overall.

Please download the pdfs and share these songs with your community – I always appreciate feedback! Audio/video recordings to come soon…

Earth Sanctus

Earth Memorial Acclamation

Earth Amen

A song for returning to worship in our buildings

The bizarreness of pandemic life is something many of us continue to struggle with, particularly when we have devoted our working life to lifting up congregational song, and for the past year that collective voice has been silenced. As we prepare to return to our buildings, when public health guidelines allow us to do so safely, here’s a song from our catalogue which may find new meaning for you. Originally written for Epiphany worship, “Returning Home a Different Way” captures some of the hope we feel as we will, in time, find our song to sing together again. Here’s a revised piano/vocal score and our original recording for you to share with your community. Note the language change at the end of the chorus in the score – “we are sister, brother” misses the many expressions of gender identity we experience today, so we have changed the language to “Through loving one another” to address the issue. Blessings, everyone!

A song for July 5

I wrote “Come to Me” for Cheryl and her mother when Dad died in 1994. As I see the Matthew text come around in the lectionary again I am reminded of what a comfort this song has been to us over the years. And the recording is 25 years old now! Enjoy, and share with your community.

https://evensong.ca/wp-content/uploads/come_to_me.pdf