Mer­ri­field grew up in Mans­field, Mass­a­chu­setts, where his fa­ther was a clerk at the post of­fice for ma­ny years, and his mo­ther was a school nurse. In high school, he learned the gui­tar, be­came ac­tive in band and chor­us, and wrote folk songs. In Christ­mas 1974, his high school choir re­cord­ed and per­formed his Christ­mas Round; his first song col­lect­ion, 18 Years, ap­peared the fol­low­ing year.

Ralph ma­jored in mu­sic com­po­si­tion at West­field State Coll­ege, where he be­came pre­si­dent of the lo­cal chap­ter of Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ. He al­so played in lo­cal cof­fee hous­es and church­es, and played the bar­i­tone horn with the Sym­phon­ic Wind Phil­har­mon­i­ca.

Af­ter coll­ege, Mer­ri­field worked at the in­ter­na­tion­al head­quar­ters of the Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ in San Ber­nard­i­no, Cal­i­for­nia (1979-1983). He and his wife then re­turned to New Eng­land, where he worked for Cross­roads, an in­ter­de­nom­in­a­tion­al Christ­ian mini­st­ry in Sud­bury, Mass­a­chu­setts, and var­i­ous book­keep­ing/ac­count­ing po­si­tions.

Ralph and his friends have been writ­ing Script­ure-based praise chor­us­es, re­cord­ing and lead­ing wor­ship for over two de­cades. Since 1991, their songs have tra­veled to over 210 coun­tries and all 50 states in Amer­i­ca. His New Hope Mu­sic web site has over 500 orig­in­al, Script­ure-based praise songs and hymns by Ralph Mer­ri­field, Adri­an V. Mill­er, Stephen Mi­sar­ski, Len­ny Smith, Ju­lie Joyn­er and others. Their songs have been trans­lat­ed into over 20 lang­uag­es; they have pub­lished three song­books of chor­us­es for Pub­lic Wor­ship, Child­ren and Choirs. One piece, Splen­dor and Ma­je­sty, was pub­lished by Hal Leo­nard in their Praise and Wor­ship Fake Book; it was also ar­ranged by Tom Fett­ke and pub­lished by Fred Bock.

1. Baby of Beth­le­hem, The
   • O Bebê de Belém
2. He Shall Be Called
3. How Awe­some Is This Place
4. If We Walk in the Light
   • Se An­da­mos na Luz
5. Now Our God
6. Splendor and Ma­jes­ty