Dr. Kimberly Arnold
Visiting Professor of Music and Worship
Coordinator of Worship Studies
Biography
Kim enjoys researching in all areas related to hymnology, especially in worship history and theology. Her dissertation research centered on pneuma-soteriological hymns used in the revivals of Asahel Nettleton and Charles Finney. This research directly impacts today's worship practices and she enjoys leading discussions on this topic with students. Her goal is to get students to think biblically about all areas of worship, encouraging them to form practices based solely on God's word. Kim is a wife and mother, and enjoys exploring God's creation with her family.
Education
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Ph.D., Church Music & Worship, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
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M.M., Music History, The University of Oklahoma
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B.S. Piano Performance, Southern Nazarene University
Courses Taught
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Theology of Worship
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History of Worship & Songs of the Church
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Multi-Generational Worship
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Planning & Leading Worship
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Intro to Music and Worship Ministry
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Leading Worship from the Piano
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Worship Forum
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Worship Lab Band
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Arts & Western Culture
Professional Memberships
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Evangelical Theological Society
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Southern Baptist Church Music Collective
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Society for Christian Scholarship in Music
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Oklahoma Art League
Selected Publications
“In Quest of a Denominationally Unifying Hymnbook: Three Baptist Hymnbooks Published in America Prior to the Formation of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Baptist History and Heritage Journal 56 (2021), 20-37.
“Two of Fred Kaan’s Hymns for Easter and Good Friday,” The Hymn 71 no. 1 (Winter).
Book Review: The Hymnal: A Reading History by Christopher N. Phillips. Christianity and Literature 71 no. 1 (March 2022).
Book Review: Trinitarian Doxology: T. F. and J. B. Torrance’s Theology of Worship as Participation by the Spirit in the Son’s Communion with the Father by Kevin J. Navarro. Artistic Theologian 10.
Selected Presentations
2021. Christian Congregational Music Conference, Rippon College, Oxford. “In Quest of ‘The Acceptable Way of Worshipping the True God’: Applying T. David Gordon’s Liturgical Song Criteria to Today’s Worship Practices.”
2021. Evangelical Theological Society, Fort Worth, TX. “Music as the Handmaid, not the Mistress, of Devotion: Fittingness in the Hymnody of Asahel Nettleton and Thomas Hastings.”
2022. Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Macon, GA. “Music as More than Mental Mechanism: An Analysis of Imagination in the Hymnody of Thomas Hastings.”
2022. Evangelical Theological Society, Denver, CO. “A Denominationally Unifying Hymnbook: Three Baptist Hymnbooks in America before the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
2024. Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Wheaton, IL “From Watts to Crosby: The Impact of American Revivalism on Hymn Texts and Tunes in the Nineteenth Century.”
2026. Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Palos Heights, IL. “The State of Church Music in Europe: Lowell Mason’s Sabbatarian View on His European Tours of 1837 and 1853.” Poster presentation. "