The Power and Purpose of Psalms
Scores of psalm-lovers from across North America and beyond gathered at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich., Feb. 5-6 to take part in Psalms 150: A Conference Experience. Sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW), the event featured two days of prayer and worship, music performances, a lively psalm festival, and assorted lectures and presentations, said Kathy Smith, interim director of the worship institute.
Intermittently full of joy and praise as well as lament and sorrow, the Psalms are known as “God’s prayerbook,” said Smith. Recognizing the range and fullness of the Psalms, CICW has invited people this year to learn about and celebrate this book of the Bible through a multifaceted program called Dwelling in the Psalms.
The conference in early February, Smith added, was the highlight of the year-long program and replaced the institute's annual Worship Symposium, normally held at that time. “The Psalms are for all seasons,” said Smith. “You can come to them in your own unique way. That’s why we would like to see people dive into the Psalms.”
The conference explored the book of Psalms from many angles, and several plenary talks focused on specific psalms or looked at themes such as trauma, joy, or spiritual longing inherent in the Psalms.
During the opening worship service, held in Calvin’s Covenant Fine Arts Center, Amanda Benckhuysen expressed gratitude for the conference. “There is a lot going on in the world today,” said Benckhuysen, who teaches Bible at Calvin University and at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. “I have craved being at this conference and being with other followers of Jesus so we could draw near together.”
In reading and reciting the Psalms, she said, people are able to “bring their whole selves to God.” For instance, Psalm 6 offers a plea to God to help when we are beset by hardships. Part of the psalm reads: “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony” (vv. 1-2).
“Psalms such as this can capture our experiences exactly,” said Benckhuysen. And then, she added, there is Psalm 3, which speaks of God’s care: “I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear . . .” (vv. 5-6).
In a broken world, in which events can crush us and rob us of hope, the psalms can both speak of our anguish and provide comfort that we can receive from God, Benckhuysen added. “We can look around and notice those who are suffering,” she said, “but we know that God listens to those who pray to God.”
Jared Alcantara, who teaches preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, also spoke of how the Psalms can lift us from difficulties. “Next time you find yourself hungry, you could actually come to the Psalms to eat,” he said. “You can experience instruction and satisfaction for that longing in your soul.”
As Alcantara and others spoke about the Psalms, artist Joel Schoon-Tanis stood to one side of the Fine Arts Center stage and painted a desert scene showing a landscape filled with lush, flowering fruit trees – representative of the Psalms.
Another plenary speaker was Terry Wildman, a Native American who helped to create the First Nations Version of portions of Scripture, including the Psalms and Proverbs and the New Testament, into language that uses, according a press release, Indigenous idioms and cultural phrasing to help native people better understand Scripture.
Wildman opened his talk by describing why he decided to take on the task of translation. Essentially, he said, he came to see that the Bible was historically used to help colonize the Native Americans, and because it was filled with a European mindset and purpose, it carried a language foreign to native people.
“The Bible itself was weaponized. Churches and missionary organizations used Scripture not to honor native identity but to erase it,” said Wildman. “It was used to force Indigenous people to abandon their ceremonies, languages, and ways of life in the name of religious conformity.”
Hanging over those who failed to accept that approach to teaching the stories in the Bible, he went on, “was the threat of a fiery hell. . . . And stories from the Old Testament were used to justify what they were doing. That wasn’t the gospel.”
As a result, said Wildman, he began to wonder what it would “look like for people to hear the words of the Creator through Scripture in a way that resonates with our native people in a voice that honors our ways of seeing the world.”
By turning the Bible into a book with which native readers could identify, Wildman said, he and others aimed to use a style “that was easy to read with an attempt to present in writing the cadence and feel of an oral storyteller.”
Among other things, they changed names in the Bible to connect to a native approach to understanding who was who and what roles they played in Scripture. “We began using translated meanings of biblical names because in native culture names carry a sacred trust.”
Thus, he said, Jesus became the Creator Who Sets Free, while Peter became Stand on a Rock, and, in the Psalms, Yahweh became Grandfather. “Every name in the Bible was handled this way,” said Wildman.
In another plenary session Karen Campbell, a pastor from Northern Ireland, spoke of how praying and better understanding the Psalms played a role in a reconciliation process that she helped to shepherd for churchgoers. This took place, she said, many years after “the Troubles,” the conflict between Protestants and Catholics that occurred in Northern Ireland from about 1968 to 1998.
She was part of a team that met with people, particularly Presbyterians, in focus groups all over the country, she explained. During those gatherings, she said, people had the chance to talk about trauma they had experienced during the fighting.
“We talked to people especially about how they thought the church had responded and what worship was like during that time,” she said. “We gave people a chance to voice their trauma and allowed them to ask questions about why the church didn't speak out and confront the political leaders of that time.”
People shared stories about bombs going off, family members being killed, the many funerals that took place, and, said Campbell, “of how the enemy was often their neighbor who informed on you. In this there was a sense of betrayal, and with this we turned to Psalm 109.”
In this psalm we read: “For people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues” (v. 2).
In addition, said Campbell, there was Psalm 64, which begins, “Hear me, my God, as I voice my complaint; protect my life from the threat of the enemy. Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the plots of evildoers” (vv. 1-2).
In various sessions, Campbell said, people also spoke of how the church, in its silence, helped to fan the flames of violence. Instead of speaking out, church authorities tended to ignore the bloodshed and to turn away from the dying. And “to help dismantle the walls of silence that had stood for so long,” said Campbell, people turned to Psalm 39 to help express their feelings. In part, this psalm reads: “I said, ‘I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth while in the presence of the wicked.’ So I remained utterly silent, not even saying anything good. But my anguish increased; my heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue. . . .” (vv. 1-3).
Overall, she said, she wondered at that time, and still today, if it would have helped to pray and sing psalms when “the Troubles” were causing such disruption and despair. Could turning to God, in the midst of such conflict, have helped prevent having that empty chair at your table?” Basically, she said, she has questioned whether praying and relying on these prayers could have curbed the violence of that time.
She said she does know, however, that by praying the Psalms in focus groups, the people in those sessions “had the chance to bear witness to the darkness and to ask if something as horrible as murder could have redemptive purposes.”
Videos of the conference show that from listening to Celtic music to participating in psalm-singing, and from viewing artwork about psalms to hearing speakers use various psalms to explain the joys of worship and the sorrow of loss, it was clear that the conference drew on the power of these prayers and gave many people new songs to sing and fresh prayers to offer.
Additional events in this year’s Dwelling in the Psalms series:
February 25, 2026
Sing a New Song: A Festival of Psalms
Grand Rapids Christian Schools
Grand Rapids, Michigan
March 21, 2026
Singing for Our Lives: Echoes of the Psalms in Social Movements
St. Andrew’s United Church
Toronto, Ontario
June 12-14, 2026
Psalmody in Color: Celebrating the Sacred Music of Black Voices
Abyssinian Baptist Church
New York City, New York
September 18, 2026
Dwelling in the Psalms: Music for Organ, Choir, and Congregation
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey
