Lim Swee Hong (林瑞峰)

Program Director, Master of Sacred Music
Deer Park Associate Professor of Sacred Music

Contact

• Telephone: 416-585-4543
• Email: sweehong.lim@utoronto.ca

Teaching and Research Interests

Dr. Swee Hong Lim is the Deer Park Associate Professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College and the director of the Master of Sacred Music Program. Before joining Emmanuel on July 1, 2012, Lim served as an assistant professor of Church Music at Baylor University in Texas. Prior to his work at Baylor, he served as a lecturer of Worship, Liturgy and Music at Trinity Theological College in Singapore.

Lim is widely recognized as a leader in global seminars and conferences focused on worship and sacred music. He served as director of music for the 11th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2022, and as director of research for the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada from 2014 to 2020. In 2013, he served as co-moderator of the Worship Committee for the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan, South Korea, and was a member of the Worship Planning Committee for the 2011 Ecumenical Peace Convocation sponsored by the World Council of Churches in Jamaica. From 2006 to 2011, he chaired the Committee on Worship and Liturgy for the World Methodist Council and designed and supervised the worship services for the 20th World Methodist Conference in Durban, South Africa.

Lim holds a PhD in Liturgical Studies from Drew University, where his dissertation won the Helen LePage and William Hale Chamberlain Prize for Outstanding Dissertation. He also holds a Master of Arts in Sacred Music from Perkins School of Theology. He completed his undergraduate studies in Church Music at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music in the Philippines. Lim is widely published in the field of global music, with his monograph Giving Voice to Asian Christians recognized among global music scholars. He is also a prolific composer of congregational songs.

Lim’s research focuses on postcolonial contextual worship music practices, particularly in Asia, and contemporary praise and worship music-making in North America. His work examines how worship music-making shapes Christian identity and spirituality. In his teaching, Lim is passionate about helping students understand the contexts in which worship music is created and develop the skills needed to carry out their pastoral music leadership responsibilities. To that end, he encourages students to participate in academic conferences and submit their research for publication.

Selected Publications

Books/Editorial Work

• All Shall Be Well: Songs for the Church. Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Company, 2024.
• Liturgy: Global & Local Issues in Liturgy. Vol. 37, no. 1. The Liturgical Conference, 2021–22.
  
• A History of Contemporary Praise & Worship: Understanding the Ideas That Reshaped the Protestant Church. Co-authored with Lester Ruth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021.

Emmanuel College Music Series

2023

• Christ the Lord is Risen Today
• The Eagle, The Hen and the Dove
• For the Blessings of Each Day
• I Arise Today
• O God of Life
• The Road I Trod

2021

• Abide With Me
• Although I Speak with Angel’s Tongue

Compositions and Music Publications

• “A Messenger in Glory Stood” (XIYUE/JOY)
• “The Breath of Dawn” (DAWN)
  Carol Stream: Hope Publishing Company, 2026.
• “In Your Kingdom” (KINGDOM)
  “Out of Strange Unlikely Places” (RED OAK)
  Persevere in Your Witness: WCRC General Council 2025, 14–23 October. Chiangmai: World Communion of Reformed Churches, 2025.
• “As the Wind Song Through the Trees” (WAIRUA TAPU)
• “Cross and Circle” (CAIDRE)
• “God in Whose Memory No One Is Lost” (FORGET-ME-NOT)
• “In All Times Past” (SAM N LOON)
  Then Let Us Sing! Toronto: United Church of Canada Press, 2025.
• “Hear This from a Homeless Stranger” (ALLAN GARDENS)
• “In the Wastelands of Cities” (DHARAVI)
  Unbound Music Series. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2025.
• “When Wounded People, Loved and Held” (AMOR TRANSFORMAT)
  Carol Stream: Hope Publishing Company, 2025.
• “In a Deep, Unbounded Darkness” (CIAI 慈爱)
• “Let the Hungry Come to Me” (CHRIST CARES)
• “See the Lilies” (GOD PROVIDES)
  Unbound Music Series. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2024.
• 『わたしたちの声を見つけよう～リム・スイホン作品集』
  Let Us Sing Our Own Songs to God: Songs by Lim Swee Hong. Tokyo: The Hymn Society in Japan, 2023.
• “When We Strive and We Strain: You Are Enough” (CHUKUP)
• “Jesus Entered Egypt” (AL-MANSURIYYAH)
  Unbound Music Series. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2023.
• “For the Faithful Who Have Answered” (FAITHFUL)
• “How Deep the Silence of the Soul” (DEEP SILENCE)
  Unbound Music Series. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, 2022.
• “Seek Good, Not Evil” (MAULE)
  Unbound Music Series. Carol Stream: Hope Publishing Company, 2021.
• “Father, to Him We Turn Our Face” (MISERERE)
• “How Glorious Is the Life Above” (GLORIOUS LIFE)
  A Theology of the Sacraments Interpreted by John and Charles Wesley. Eugene: Resource Publications, 2021.

Essays

• “Kaishuu sanbi wo yutaka ni” [“Toward a Richer Congregational Singing”]. In Minna no sanbika [Hymns for Everyone], edited by Mikako Ehara. Tokyo: NewSong Publishing, 2025.
• “The Limits and Possibilities of Singing Across Cultures,” co-authored with Kate Graber, Maria Monteiro, Jean Ngoya Kidula and Marcel Silva Steuernagel. The Hymn 75, no. 1 (Winter 2025): 25–33.
• “A Prophetic Voice.” In Peace Is Her Song: The Life and Work of Hymnist Shirley Erena Murray, edited by Ann Manchester, 227–231. Auckland: Presbyterian Church in New Zealand, 2024.
• “Let Us Sing to God: The Value of Asian Congregational Songs for Liturgy and Mission.” Transformation 41, no. 2 (March 2024): 145–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/02653788241240205.
• “Why So Many Hallelujahs? Appreciating the Use of Congregational Song at the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, Germany.” The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song 74, no. 4 (Autumn 2023): 11–19.
• “The Use of Music of the Contemporary Era Serves to Express the Action of the Spirit Today.” In Living the Church’s Song. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2023.
• “Reconciliation and Song: Being God’s Message to the World.” Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching and the Arts 55, no. 4. Louisville: Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), March 2022.
• “Potting Christianity: Ecumenical Worship in Its Multicultural and Multi-Ethnic Context.” Religions 13, no. 1 (January 2022): 73.

Memberships & Ecclesial Affiliations

• Member, United Methodist Church, USA
• Member, Methodist Church in Singapore

Memberships

• Hymn Society in the United States and Canada
• International Academy of Practical Theology
• North American Academy of Liturgy
• Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
• Societas Liturgica

Selected Courses

• EMP 2861 HF Worship, Ritual, and Music 
• EMP 2875 HY Toronto School of Theology Choir 
• EMP 3145 HS Practicum with Integrative Project 
• EMP 3855/6855 HS Global and Contemporary Worship Song Leadership 
• EMP 3858 HS Sacred Music in Christian History 
• TXT 1120 HF Theology, Spirituality, and the Arts 
• TSM 5021 HF Theology of Ministry 

Other Information

• Editor, Emmanuel College Music Series 
• Fellow, The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada 
• Member, Journal of Praise & Worship editorial committee 
• Member, Societas Liturgica editorial committee