Sacred Music and Commentary Radio Program produced at St. Olaf College Accomplished members of the St. College Pastor Bruce Benson is writer and host.
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Heard by thousands of listeners over 150 communities nationwide, Sing For Joy has a simple mission: to provide music and commentary that will support the church in evangelism and worship. Through sacred choral music and thoughtful commentary, the program prepares listeners for worship and reinforces their worship experience. A defining trait of Sing For Joy is basing each week's music on the scrip
tural lessons specified in the common lectionary. This three-year cycle of readings has become the basis for worship in the services that a majority of churchgoers in America attend. The musical performances eloquently "do the talking," while the host's concise comments illuminate the meaning of the texts. Olaf College community share chief responsibility for Sing For Joy's content. Professor of Music John Ferguson and Producer and Music Director Jeff O'Donnell oversee the selection of music. Together, this team continues the tradition and mission of Sing For Joy first established over 50 years ago.
Hear the old American hymn “Blessed Assurance” (and more!) this week on SFJ. Boe Chapel is home to many students who are heading to campus to continue, or start, their own stories on the Hill! Good luck to everyone transitioning to the school-year routine in the weeks ahead. Link to this week’s program in profile.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-08-25
The Sing For Joy August newsletter is live! This month Rev. Alexandra Jacob reflects on her time at a church conference in the mountains of North Carolina, and how the theme “Lead Us Homeward” resonates with her — and perhaps will resonate with you as well! (Spoiler alert: “Blessed Assurance” is on her list! What’s on yours?)
🔗 Link to newsletter in our profile.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/read/letter/2024-08
As SFJ Music Director Andrew Jacob shares in the July newsletter, there are two very different musical settings of the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” on this week’s program. Each one colors the text in a different way. Which one do you prefer?
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-07-14
Tune in to Sing For Joy this week for some comforting and familiar hymns, like "Children of the Heavenly Father" and "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." Sunday may be past, but on SFJ we listen to good sacred choral music all week long!
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-06-30
How do the host and music director of SFJ spend their summer? Why, traveling to Montreat, NC for the Worship and Music Conference, held by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, of course!
Rev. Alexandra Jacob says, "It’s been fun for us to meet Sing For Joy listeners from all over the country and the world. A favorite moment was meeting a listener who lives in Taiwan!"
We hope your summers are also filled with adventure, community and of course, MUSIC!
June 9, 2024: Time After Pentecost — Lectionary 10 (Year B)
Join us on SFJ as we hear musical expressions of Psalm 130, including a haunting cello in John Rutter’s “Requiem: Out of the Deep,” and other music for this week in the church year.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-06-09
The Sing For Joy June Newsletter is now live! Come read Rev. Alexandra Jacob's reflection on parables and learn about a seminary exercise that might inspire you to find your own "parable moments" as we head into the summer months!
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/read/letter/2024-06
This Sunday, churches will hear a story of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Join us this week for Sing For Joy, where we'll hear music for that story and other scripture texts for the week.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-06-02
This week in Christian churches, worshipers celebrate Trinity Sunday, affirming the doctrine of one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This week at SFJ we are also celebrating Rev. Alexandra and Andrew Jacob, as Trinity Sunday marks two full years since they joined the SFJ team as host and music director.
If you have not donated to SFJ yet this spring, now is the perfect time to give! We are in our final week of our spring fund drive and in need of your support!
https://stolaf.alumniq.com/giving/to/singforjoy
Photo credit: Saint Paul Area Synod, ELCA
Hello Sing For Joy listeners, from all of us at the Sing For Joy visioning meeting this past week where we had in-depth conversation about how we can continue to bring you the best in sacred choral music and reflection each week of the church year in a way that is accessible, welcoming and inspiring.
We are halfway through the spring fund drive and haven't yet made it halfway to our goal of $12,000. If you have the means to give this spring, it would mean a lot to us -- and listeners everywhere -- so that we can continue doing this important work. Our spring drive runs through May 31.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/donate/drives.html
Did you know, when you give $30 or more to Sing For Joy during the month of May we will send you a SFJ sticker that is perfect for water bottles and laptop covers? Here's a peek inside Rev. Alexandra Jacob's office where she can be found sporting her new stickers! Tag us in your photos so we can see your stickers in action! We hope this small token of appreciation will remind you of all the Sing For Joy music and messages that stick with you throughout the entire year.
https://stolaf.alumniq.com/giving/to/singforjoy
Have you ever listened to a great sacred choral piece on Sing For Joy and found yourself thinking about it later in the week or year? What is it about sacred choral music that sticks with us long after the voices fade? There is something enduring in music, much like the flowers of spring that feed our spirit through the winter, and that is precisely why we continue to do the work of bringing Sing For Joy to your ears year round.
.. and why we need your support today! It's the start of our spring fund drive, and to show our gratitude for your gifts, we will send a water bottle / laptop cover sticker to everyone who gives $30 or more during the month of May!
https://stolaf.alumniq.com/giving/to/singforjoy
The Sing For Joy May Newsletter is now live! Come read about one of Rev. Alexandra's favorite quotes in all of hymnody, which is part of a fourth-century canticle, the Te Deum Laudamus, sometimes associated with Trinity Sunday:
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/read/letter/2024-05
April 21, 2024
Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." So begins the well-loved twenty-third psalm, the focus of this week's Sing For Joy program. Join us to hear musical settings of the psalm and more.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-04-21
April 14, 2024
Third Sunday of Easter (Year B)
On this third Sunday of Easter, churches will hear a comforting passage from the book of 1 John, proclaiming that we are all children of God. Join us on Sing For Joy this week as we hear music celebrating that love during this season of Eastertide.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-04-14
The April Newsletter is now live. Come read about the season of Eastertide, bodies and "Black Liturgies" -- a book of poetry, liturgies, and reflections that Rev. Alexandra Jacob has found meaningful in her life.
The monthly Sing For Joy newsletter contains a letter from the program's host, Rev. Alexandra M. Jacob, along with a listing of music selections for each program and the corresponding scripture readings. If you'd like to receive a complimentary subscription, fill out our online request form to subsc...
Make Sing For Joy part of your Easter Day celebration! Listen after church, while you prepare an Easter meal, or make it your very own sunrise service! However you listen, we hope the music and commentary brings meaning to this very important and joyous day.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-31
The Great Vigil of Easter from St. Olaf College in 2023
(Matthew Marohl, College Pastor & Katherine Fick, Associate College Pastor)
March 29, 2024: Good Friday (Year B)
On this week's special Good Friday episode of Sing For Joy, we join Christians across the world in remembering the day of Jesus' death on the cross. Join us as we hear music for this day in the life of the Church.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-29
The three days of Holy Week, known as the Easter Triduum, focus intensely on Christ’s passage from death to life and include Maundy Thursday evening through Easter evening. Come, observe the start of the Triduum with the St. Olaf College Maundy Thursday service held in 2023 (it is spring break this year on campus), available for on-demand streaming:
https://www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/play/?c=3875
"Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hear all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue Your road
with palms and scattered garments strowed."
-Henry Hart Milman
March 24, 2024: Sunday of the Passion — Palm Sunday (Year B)
This week, churches around the world will celebrate Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem, with the crowd around him waving palm branches and shouting, Hosanna! Join us on Sing For Joy as we hear music for Palm Sunday.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-24
"Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green."
-John M.C. Crum
March 17, 2024: Fifth Sunday in Lent (Year B)
On this fifth Sunday in Lent, churches around the world will hear the fifty-first psalm, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Join us on Sing For Joy as we hear music for that psalm and more.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-17
March 10, 2024: Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year B)
This week, Christian worshipers will hear a familiar passage from the gospel of John, which begins, "for God so loved the world..." Join us on Sing For Joy as we hear music inspired by this text.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-10
"In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o'er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime."
-Sir John Bowring
Join us this week on Sing For Joy as we hear music for the third Sunday of Lent that speaks to the power of Christ's cross.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-03-03
In the Sing For Joy March newsletter, Rev. Alexandra Jacob takes us to Paris, to the stained glass windows in Sainte-Chappelle that tell the entire story of the Bible. Pulling in historical significance and her personal experience on a recent trip, Rev. Jacob shares how these windows, as well as the music you hear on Sing For Joy, serve as an accessible entry point into the Bible.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/read/letter/2024-03
"Take up your cross, which gives you strength,
Which makes your trembling spirit brave:
'Twill guide you to a better home
And lead to vict'ry o'er the grave."
-Charles W. Everest (1833)
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-02-25
February 25, 2024: Second Sunday in Lent (Year B)
In the scripture reading heard in churches this week, worshipers will hear Jesus tell his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him. Join us on Sing For Joy, as we listen to music inspired by this instruction.
"I want Jesus to walk with me.
I want Jesus to walk with me.
All along my pilgrim journey,
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me."
-African American Spiritual
This week as Christians begin observing the holy season of Lent, we hear stories of Jesus' baptism, wilderness temptation, and the beginning of his preaching ministry. Join us for music for the season on Sing For Joy.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-02-18
Transfiguration Sunday - the day in the Church year when we hear the story of Christ transfigured on a mountain peak. This week, join us on Sing For Joy as we hear music to go along with this special day in the liturgical calendar.
"Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true and only Light,
Sun of righteousness, arise,
triumph o'er the shade of night;
Day-spring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear."
-Charles Wesley
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-02-11
"Praise the one who breaks the darkness
with a liberating light;
praise the one who frees the pris'ners,
turning blindness into sight.
Praise the one who preached the gospel,
healing ev'ry dread disease,
calming storms and feeding thousands
with the Father's word of peace."
-Rusty Edwards
This week's Sing For Joy program focuses on healing, hope and light:
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-02-04
"Grant us grace to see you, Lord,
mirrored in your holy Word.
May our lives and all we do
imitate and honor you ..."
-Christopher Wordsworth
This week, Christian congregations will hear a story of healing from the gospel of Mark. Join us as we hear music of healing and thanksgiving, this week on Sing For Joy.
https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2024-01-28
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April 9, 2023, Resurrection of Our Lord — Easter Day (Year A) "This week on Sing For Joy, we will finally celebrate the joyful day of Easter! Join us for music that leads us into this season of new life." -Rev. Alexandra Jacob https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2023-04-09
April 7, 2023, Good Friday (Year A) "On this week's special Good Friday episode of Sing For Joy, we join Christians across the world in remembering the day of Jesus' death on the cross. Join us as we hear music for this day in the life of the Church." -Rev. Alexandra Jacob https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2023-04-07
April 2, 2023, Sunday of the Passion — Palm Sunday (Year A) "This week, Christian congregations across the globe will celebrate Palm Sunday, the day of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the start of Holy Week. Join us on Sing For Joy as we hear music for this important day in the life of the Church year." -Rev. Alexandra Jacob https://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/listen/2023-04-02
