Jason Silver is a Christian singer-songwriter and the worship leader at Harrowsmith Free Methodist Church, 25 kilometres north of Kingston, ON. Jason grew up in the Harrowsmith church, attended Aldersgate College where he received a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Religious Studies/Theology, and worked as a full time worship pastor in large churches in both the United States and Canada before transitioning to a career in web development.
When Jason and his family started attending an Angilcan church, he appreciated experiencing worship in a different way. “Using the liturgy and following the lectionary fit with some of the ideas in the back of my head about making worship less emotion-based and connecting us to the global church by all reading the same scriptures on Sunday morning.” Jason helped start a contemporary service, on Saturday evenings, at a Anglican church near Kingston. “We followed the lectionary and liturgical calendar but instead of an organ, we used a full band and contemporary music. We started by singing the Psalms in a modern way and eventually I started putting things like the Apostle’s Creed to music.”
A change in leadership at the Anglican church, led to Jason and his family to return to Harrowsmith Free Methodist church where Jason became the worship leader and continued to explore scripture-based worship songs. “Sometimes when you sing a scripture you hear and experience it in a completely different way. The melody of a song will continue to go through your head and with it is the word of God.” Jason started by putting popular verses to music, and he includes the verses around the popular verse. “I think it’s important to hear a verse in context. I love the challenge of taking something that isn’t meant to be a song and finding the structure in it. What is the rhythm and beat of the paragraph? How can I find a melody that works with it?”
Jason has put over 300 verses to music including the Psalms, Philippians, Ephesians, John, and Galatians. Jason’s Youtube channel, Scripture to Music, has over 8,000 subscribers, and he publishes a new song each week. “Churches from around the world are using my music. I translate the subtitles in my videos into other languages including Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, and French. It’s amazing how that has attracted the church at large. It’s been great to see my channel grow and see how many people are listening.”
You can learn more about Jason and his music on his website.
By Alison McKinnon
FMCiC Writer
