Ordinary Time, for most Protestant churches, begins the week after Pentecost and runs until the beginning of Advent. Some churches also consider the period between Epiphany Sunday and Lent Ordinary Time, making it the longest season of the liturgical year (source).

Are you doing the math? That's 33-34 Sundays in Ordinary Time in any given year. That's a lot of anthems!

I thought today would be the perfect time to share some of my favorite anthems for Ordinary Time. Most of them work really well with small choirs (or large choirs—whatever you've got!).

Without further ado, my top 25 anthems for Ordinary Time:

I'm standing in the middle of the music classroom. Two brothers sit side by side on the piano bench, rehearsing the duet they're preparing for our Spring recital. It's our first coaching session together.

When we talk about singing, especially singing in a community or congregational setting, we often ask, "Is it singable?"

This simple question may sound arbitrary but there's actually a lot of care and thought that goes into determining the answer.

Sometimes I get questions in my inbox that I think others may be wondering, too. Here’s a question I got recently about celebrating a church musician’s anniversary.

Do you teach a preschool choir?

If so, you know that preschoolers are musical explorers. They love to sing, dance, play, move, and experience music with their whole selves.

I've been reading The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman. The book is about making decisions and creating space for your soul to breathe and I don't know about you, but I can always use the reminder that my soul needs to breathe.

I first heard about this book from one of my grad school professors.

We were sitting around a long table one snowy January evening at our annual dinner for current and prospective doctoral students. I asked my professor about books he was reading lately and he named several including Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Carol Dweck's Mindset.

For those of you who like to plan ahead, feel in control, and know what's coming, living through another pandemic winter is likely wearing you out.

It’s a new year and that can mean only one thing: a new budget for your music program!

Most churches run on a January-December fiscal year, which means it's time to pull out your budget worksheets and start fresh.

When you do this, you suddenly remember that budget worksheets are boring, black and white Excel files, with heavy black grid lines, plain font, and pages that run on forever, which sort of puts a damper on the whole happy, fresh-start thing.

Does this sound familiar? If so, I made something for you.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know that every January, I share my book list for the upcoming year. I usually choose books from several different categories because I like mixing up my reading material throughout the year.