Its principal author, Charlotte Kroeker, is executive director of the Church Music Institute in Dallas, TX, and a pianist who has performed throughout the United States, Asia and England, frequently in the context of worship services. Her fellow researchers and co-authors include Annette Conklin (two chapters) and Linda J. Clark (one chapter). The research method is well articulated in the “Preface”: “Each pastor and musician [leader] was interviewed individually, with the researcher using the questions in appendix A. Then the researcher attended worship services to observe the liturgy in action. A second interview with pastor and musician followed, based on the questions in appendix B. We later returned to the interviewees to ask questions about congregational perspectives, listed in appendix C.” The three sets of questions printed in the appendices alone would make the book worth its price for those interested in systematic study of congregational music leadership.

After chapters devoted to each of the nine congregations researched, the work concludes with three chapters summarizing the findings (“Commonalities Across Denominations and Contexts”), dreaming about ideal environments for worship music (“Characteristics of Special Note”) and suggesting courses of action (“Implications for the Future”). As one might expect, there is a strong emphasis upon education: of clergy-musicians, of musician-theologians, and of life-long worship music learners in the congregation. Since so much of the acrimony of the discussion on the Pray Tell blog seems to arise from varying understandings of what “the best” worship is, I found the author’s five statements on striving for “the best” worship music in a particular place and time to be quite helpful:

1. Our best is the accumulated wisdom of the gifted people in our midst.
2. Our best is the accumulated wisdom from the fields of both theology and music.
3. Our best is a congregation equipped to fulfill its task in worship.
4. Our best is the development of a repertoire of music within a congregation that has lasting value over the years, music that provides nourishment for the Christian journey.
5. Our best is the development of leaders of music for the future.

I hope these few reflections will encourage readers of the Pray Tell blog, especially those involved in clerical and/or musical leadership, to put “The Sounds of our Offerings” on their “to read” list. I also hope that this research will encourage others to refine the method and continue the project.

I am always interested to see how others rise to this challenge, whether in Catholic or Protestant settings. Worship for Vital Congregations by Talitha Arnold, although it is written primarily for Protestant pastors in the Reformed tradition, addresses the fundamental question of “Why worship?” in ways that anyone might find helpful. What is worship? Why isn’t it just as good to go out and commune with nature, or pursue spirituality on my own? These are questions that continue to arise across the board.

Arnold uses the story of a raft trip on the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon as the source of numerous analogies and illustrations with which to help people understand various aspects of worship. Here is a passage that captures the flavor of the book.

It was a pretty secular group that got into those boats in June. All of us had grown up in faith traditions—Jewish, Hispanic Presbyterian, Mormon, Hispanic Catholic, Irish Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist. The group included the daughter of a Lutheran minister, another of a Mennonite minister, and the son of a Presbyterian pastor. One woman, raised Italian Catholic, had worked in India and new Hindu meditations. But now as adults only one person besides me was a part of any faith community.

Still they knew when to stand in awe of something and how to say thanks to the universe for such beauty. They also knew they weren’t the center of that universe. For each of us, those days immersed in eternity, from the first light of every dawn through every night of stars and moon was a pretty worshipful experience.

But it wasn’t worship. Awe-inspiring, yes. An experience of the Eternal, definitely. Ritual and a sense of community, yes. In short, the journey was deeply worshipful—but it wasn’t worship. Not even those times in the rapids, when we frequently invoked the name of God or Jesus or both.

But if an experience that inspiring isn’t worship, then what is it?

The author is a UCC pastor of a church in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Influenced by Evelyn Underhill and the ecumenical liturgical movement of the late twentieth century, Arnold places emphasis on fundamental issues: the relationship between the Eternal and the creature; Trinitarian faith; baptism, eucharist, liturgical year; covenant; and worship as wellspring of mission. Her pastoral work is among people who are very diverse in their attitudes toward church. Many have fled from the more liturgical churches and are wary of traditional claims and approaches to worship. That she and her pastoral team have made liturgical flowers bloom among folks who do not put a lot of stock in liturgy is a remarkable thing.

Arnold has an oral style of writing which resembles her preaching and makes the book very accessible. Here are a couple of examples:

I think our need for worship began in the Garden, as soon as the first man and the first woman ate the apple and discovered they were ashamed of themselves and afraid of God. …We want to remember we were made for that Garden. We want to take off our shoes, not for airport checkpoints, but to stand on sacred ground, in silent awe and in celebration to praise and give thanks to the Source of this whole and holy life. (p. 30)

Worship begins in praise to remind us “we ain’t it.” Most of us come to worship from a culture that wants us to believe that we and our children are the most important thing in the world and that the world (and its resources) needs to be organized around our desires. From the opening of worship, help your congregation remember who truly “is It.” (p. 41)

Worship for Vital Congregations (The Pilgrim Press, 2007; $12.00) is an engaging little book which proved to be great fun to read. It is full of anecdotes and wisdom about worship in the life of this congregation, out in the desert of New Mexico. Not all of it will apply to everybody, but for pastoral practitioners who want to “think outside the box” it’s well worth reading.

The Lord be with you.

And with your spirit.

Given that ACNA is, as I understand it, fairly evangelical, I can’t imagine this is Roman influence. But it is interesting to ponder what influence, if any, the new English translations of the Missal will have on other Christian communities as they revise their liturgies in the future.

Over the past 25 years, Ken Wilson, music minister at Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has fostered a culture of hymn singing amongst the entire congregation through a remarkable program of hymn memorization for children in grades 3 – 5. Through the program, children systematically memorize one or two stanzas of 20 hymns, carefully chosen to fit year A, B and C of the Revised Common Lectionary. The children are exposed to part-singing early as they learn to sing both soprano and alto parts. The basics of hymnody such as hymn forms and tune names are also taught.  Children who successfully memorize 60 hymns are awarded with a place on the “hymns for a lifetime all-stars” board that is displayed in the church sanctuary.

This video gives you an idea of what has been accomplished:

Learning the Language of Praise from Stephen Ball on Vimeo.

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As part of his presentation, Ken Wilson shared 10 reasons for developing a culture of hymn singing among children. A few that struck me:

• Children are prepared for a lifetime of service as church musicians – starting them young, and having them take on leadership roles in younger choirs, help the singers experience music as ministry.
• The children set the tone for learning and singing for the rest of the church – having a child sing a hymn by memory beside an adult during worship is incredibly inspiring.
• The memorization of 60 hymns equips the young with a repertoire of theological language to express themselves with through high and low moments of their life.
• A hymn-singing culture becomes a place where it is very easy for the transforming love Christ to become “indelibly engraved” on the hearts of all who sing.

The third point stands out to me, as a Roman Catholic. One of the intentions for introducing responsorial psalms into the post-Vatican II mass was to enable the faithful to learn the psalms and hopefully use them as a language for prayer. But has that worked? How many Catholics (non-liturgical musicians, especially) express themselves by quoting or singing the psalms?

Given that a “hymn-singing culture” in the Roman Catholic church is either non-existent or in its infancy in most places, what then, is our theological language outside of the mass? Is hymn singing something worth cultivating? How would such a program in a Catholic parish impact the lives of parishoners? Can/should a hymnody program be part of faith formation, and possibly integrated into all other ministries so that singing becomes a culture?

Audrey Seah is pursuing an MA in Theology (with a concentration in Liturgy) at Saint John’s School of Theology·Seminary in Collegeville, MN.

While I suppose a party does make sense, it just might be the case that Potential Church is taking the idea just a bit too far.

Beach balls aside (don’t forget to bring one, by the way), I am fascinated by the use of the term symbol in the two-point(!) catechesis on baptism half-way down the page. I suspect that by it they really mean sign, but it’s nice to have such a ready entrée for dialogue about sacramental theology.

What do you think is the role of the emotions in the worship of your tradition? Can (and should) they be cultivated?

Hat tip to Jonathan Sullivan (@sullijo on twitter).

A list of the congregations follows, with excerpts from their project proposals.

The United Church of Santa Fe (UCC) in Santa Fe, NM, is undertaking Shaping a Desert People to explore “the ways the experience of worship in a desert landscape can deepen and expand the relationship with God, and, in the process, enable people to live in a more caring and just relationship with this part of God’s creation.”

The project of Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN comprises a yearlong study of the role of children in its congregation, culminating in a weekend conference in spring 2012. “Consideration of the role of children in a faith community will compel us to develop a community that in good measure fulfills the ideal articulated in Isaiah, that is, to grant children their rightful place. This is about how attention to children will CHANGE the church!”

Come to the Banquet: Worship, Music and the Art of Hospitality is the project of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Boise, ID, drawing inspiration from Jesus’ injunction to invite to the banquet “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Once a month, “the parish hall is transformed into a banquet hall where fine food is shared liberally with the hungry and homeless of our community around a well-set table with time for conversation and the development of bonds formed around a common meal.” The congregation seeks to grow the program both in numbers served, and in the musical and artistic offerings crucial to its identity.

Arts of the Spirit: Concerts, Classes and Collaborative Worship Planning is a program whose goal is to integrate the worship planning activities of the clergy, musicians, and educators of Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA, with the activities of their Arts of the Spirit education / performance / outreach series to extend their reach in ways that would serve the larger community and the larger church.

Luther Place Memorial Church is an historic Lutheran congregation located in downtown Washington, DC whose mission and purpose converge around biblical hospitality and social justice. Their project is 14th and Vermont: The Luther Place Sacred Commons. “We are a welcoming and diverse community that practices what we call ‘rainbow hospitality.’ Over the last year, we have been working with a group to engage our space with gardening and art, and we are advancing our vision of the land around Luther Place as a ‘Sacred Commons’.”

The St. Monica Catholic Community, of Santa Monica, CA, says: “Our Hospitality Ministry welcomes people at the doors; our Music Ministry engages the assembly and keeps people coming back; our preaching feeds the soul and inspires us to transform our world as disciples. Our project, All are Welcome: A Hospitable Community that Forms Loving Disciples to Transform the World, involves deepening our own ministry of hospitality, and learning ways in which we can share this important work with the wider community.”

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Chicago, IL will convene a worship conference, Sects in the City, in October 2011 to focus on two aspects of its context: its urban setting and the predominance of young adults, many in the millennial generation born after 1980. “According to a report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one out of four Millennials claims no affiliation with a particular faith. Holy Trinity and several others of our neighborhood churches have bucked this trend. We believe we have something to share through this conference.”

The faculty for the 2011 seminar are as diverse as the congregations, and include James Abbington, Dorothy Bass, Teresa Berger, Emily Brink, Marguerite Brooks, John Ferguson, Rita Ferrone, Thomas Murray, Don E. Saliers, Bryan Spinks, and Benjamin Stewart.

More information about the faculty, the congregations, and their projects is online at www.yale.edu/congregations.

Applications for 2012 will open soon. The theme for 2012 is Keeping Time / Life Passages. For application information, see the website or call 203.432.3187.

“The center of our life here is gathering for our Divine Service of Holy Communion every Sunday, and our life together grows out of that.” — Pastor Mason Beecroft

The second video, “Loving the Liturgy — Grace Lutheran Church,” focuses on liturgical theology and the experience of this congregation as it gathers for worship.

“The Liturgy or the tradition is there to form our minds that our minds might be the mind of Christ.” — Pastor Mason Beecroft

The church’s website, from which the title of this post comes, presents a more developed liturgical theology. Be sure to click on the tab “Dancing at Grace” (no, not that kind of dancing!).

I think these videos are an interesting introduction to liturgical worship as one congregation experiences it. They strike me as a useful catechetical or evangelistic tool, especially as both their form and content will appeal to a post-Megachurch/Emergent Church audience (as well as to any tech-savvy audience).

I find the honesty, simplicity and traditional quality of their worship very appealing, and the presentation in this format to be attractive and extremely useful. Kudos to Paster Beecroft and the Grace Lutheran Church in Tulsa!

One is the 33rd annual sunrise service help by Pastor Amos Dodge at Arlington National Cemetery, at which thousands gathers in the darkness before dawn to mark the the victory of the light of the risen Christ over the darkness of death.

The other is the morning service at Shiloh Baptist Church, attended by the Obama family, at which several children and an adult were baptized.

The Post, as might be expected, presented these as “quintessential Washington Easter scenes,” but I was struck more by their  quintessential Christianity. That is, I was struck by the fact that these two celebrations by what we might think of as “non-liturgical” Christians incorporated elements that we would normally associate with “liturgical” Christian traditions: darkness pierced by light, and the death and rebirth of baptism. I presume that these are not communities that are self-consciously appropriating ancient ritual patterns. Rather, it is as if they are simply acting according to the primordial logic of the Easter mystery itself.

It is as if the mystery of Easter naturally makes us turn toward the imagery of darkness and light, of dying and rising with Christ in baptism. What better way to celebrate Easter than by beginning in cold darkness and ending in light? What other act is more appropriate on the day that Christ conquered death than the rite by which we are conformed to that pattern of death and resurrection?

I find it somehow comforting to know that what my own parish community celebrated at the Easter Vigil bears some similarity to the celebrations of these not liturgical Christians. It gives me greater confidence that our liturgy is not simply a set of accumulated human ritual acts bequeathed to us by tradition, but is rather the natural, quintessential expression of the meaning of Easter: darkness and light, death and rebirth.