YOUTH CHOIR PERIODICALS PUBLISHED BY THE

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION: 1966-1995

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

In the early 1920's, various individuals and agencies began

voicing concern for the overall inadequacy of the music practice in
member churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. Among them
was Isham E. Reynolds, director of the music program at Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Texas. Although his formal
education was interrupted several times with job changes and the early
death of his wife and infant child, Reynolds attended both Mississippi
College and the Moody Bible Institute (Chicago) before becoming a state
music evangelist in Mississippi.* To complete his undergraduate
degree, he took a correspondence course for many years from the Siegel-
Myers University Correspondence School of Music in Chicago. The
school then awarded him a Bachelor of Music degree.

Tommy Ray Spigener, "The Contributions of Isham E.

Reynolds to Church Music in the Southern Baptist Convention
Between 1915-1945." (M.C.M. thesis. Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Texas, 1962).
 After meeting and hearing Reynolds sing at the annual meeting
of the Southern Baptist Convention in May 1915, the president of
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Leroy Scarborough, asked
Reynolds to become director of the music department at the seminary.
Thus, in September of 1915 he became director of the first school for the
training of church musicians ever established by Baptists.^ Reynolds
m ade strong attempts to focus the attention of denominational and SBC
laity, pastors, educators, and leaders on the need to improve church
music. He stressed that music training become a part of Sunday School,
Baptist Young People’s Union, summer camps and institutes.^ He
devoted countless hours to the development and leadership of music
seminars in churches and state associations. Also, Ernest O. Sellers,
director of the newly formed music program at Baptist Bible Institute
(now the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) advocated the
need for pastoral leadership to improve the status of church music.’*
Reynold’s and Seller’s efforts resulted in the formation of a SBC
committee to study ways of improving the general practice of church
music in Baptist churches. Members of this committee included E C.
Dargan, Charles W. Daniel, and J. Fred Scholfield. In 1926, the
committee made thirteen recommendations to the Southern Baptist

^William J. Reynolds. The Cross and the Lyre: The Story of

the School of Church Music. Fort Worth, TX: Faculty of the School
of Church Music, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994,
2.
^Wesley L. Forbis, "The Sunday School Board and Baptist Church
Music," Baptist History and Heritage 19, no. 1 (January 1984): 18.

^Ibid.,19.
Convention. One recommendation called for establishing a Church
Music Department within the existing Baptist Sunday School Board.
The recommendation was stated as follows:

That this Convention instruct the Sunday School Board to give

careful consideration at its earliest convenience, to the
advisability of establishing and fostering a Church Music
Department for the purpose of improving the musical conditions
in the stated church services of the various churches of this
Convention.^

Music Editor Appointed

The 1926 recommendation was approved by the BSSB but not
acted upon for several years. Then in 1935, Benjamin Bayless
McKinney began working as music editor for the BSSB to develop and
promote gospel music. He was hired to compose and edit music and
provide resources for Southern Baptist churches. A native Oklahoman,
McKinney was a voice teacher at Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas before assuming his position as editor.^
Although pleased with McKirmey's appointment, the early visionaries,
Reynolds and Sellers, still felt a music editor alone was insufficient.
Reynolds, Sellers, McKinney, Johnson, and J. W. Storer signed and
presented a new resolution at the 1937 Southern Baptist Convention
urging the Convention to "make a study of the present conditions and

’Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"Church Music." Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Nashville: 1926, 43.
‘William J. Reynolds. The Songs of B. B. McKinney. Edited by
Alta C. Faircloth. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1974, iv.