WorshipHelps

Singing Pentecost

Music adds many layers of meaning - subtle or obvious - to the drama of scripture.

Take Pentecost for example. The story in Acts 2 is rich with allusion, imagery, history, narrative - all of which have filled many books and many sermons. If we frame the reading of the story with a musical response sung by the congregation, we encourage the worshipping community to glimpse more of those layers. More than glimpse: experience.

It is the prophet Joel's story: though he'd lived long before New Testament times, his presence continued to be felt. Repeating the refrain reminds us of the prophetic witness that informs this account of the event.

It is a Jewish story: there were many Jewish renewal movements before, during and after Jesus' time. The events described by Luke took place during Shavu'oth, the harvest festival, with Jewish pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem from all over the known world. The music below is in the form of a hora, a Jewish dance of celebration. Even though the composition is modern - and we of course do not know how the music of the time of Jesus sounded - the music itself can give us a flavour of the times.

This is our story: singing a response allows us to both listen and participate in it.
The music lives in our soul long after we've left the worship space, drawing us back into the story to experience new insight.

Singing also gives children an access into the scripture reading: they can remember short texts and repeated melodies and rhythms. Parents in my church community often ask me how to get their children to stop singing - over and over and over - music they learned in church.

For a downloadable .pdf file of this song, click here.  For an .mp3 file to listen to, click here.

4/30/06 music

Just for fun I thought I'd post a list of music we're using this Sunday with some notes about the choices:

4/30/06 3rd Sunday of Easter
Scripture readings: Psalm 116 and Colossians 1:15-23 (sermon text)

OPENING HYMN:
Bb – A Shout Rings Out/Daar juicht een toon (PsH 392)
    “prelude” choir sings verse 1 in Dutch
    then with cong 4 verses

OT SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 116 with “I Love the Lord” (SNC 227)
(We'll volley back and forth between the reader and the people singing the song.)

PRE-SERMON HYMN:
The First Place
(A great song by Matthew Westerholm which fits the sermon scripture like a glove. I created backing vocals for the choir to fill out the refrain a bit.)

COMMUNION:
D - God So Loved the World (choir only)
D – At the Name of Jesus/Walker (JN 32)
D/Eb – Oh Que Bueno (PsH 401)
    (using clave, maracas and bongos to bring the rhythm to life)
Eb - Beautiful Savior (JN 5)
Eb – O Christ, the Great Foundation (SNC 177)
    (May use the "Let It Rip" arrangement of the tune “Aurelia”)

By way of context, the congregation is Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids. It's a liturgical CRC church with strong ties to Calvin College, Calvin Seminary and the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Stylistically, we lean heavily on the Psalter Hymnal and Sing! a New Creation. We also use a good bit of global music, some home grown songs, and dip lightly into choral repertoire and praise and worship.

Peace,

Greg Scheer

Confessions of a Baby Ethnomusicologist

I have no business doing what I'm doing.  I'm a United Methodist pastor by training and spent 25 years in parish ministry.  But God's calling is never predictable.  Five years ago I took a leap of faith based on that new calling and founded a ministry called The Ministry of Congregational Singing.   I try to help congregations sort out why their singing has gotten timid or conflicted.

Then a year and a half ago, a colleague who now serves as mission director for United Methodism's new work in Cameroon emailed and said, in effect, "I need someone to come over here and encourage the young leaders of the church to create their first hymnal/worshipbook."  Since the first leap had been really energizing, I decided to leap again. 

At one level, I was a fool to say yes.  I had no business thinking I could walk into a bi-lingual culture (French/English) with only a few years of high school French and act as an entrepreneur of hope for people who had more music in their index fingers than I had in my whole body.  But sometimes the call to do something comes before you have all the actual equipment to live in that call.

What I'll be doing in this blog is to tell stories about the journey I've had as a baby ethnomusicologist.  I'll report the stumblings and the victories.  I hope what will be most transparent is the degree to which what is happening in Cameroonian Methodism is nothing more or less than the grace of God taking amazing forms.

Blessings on the journey.

John Thornburg

Further Thoughts on Lamenting Well

My community has experienced the benefits of expressing our anger and confusion with God in a time of Lament.  One time of lament that we (the worship arts team) came up with was particularly meaningful.  We married two songs together and used a Psalm of Lament to structure our time.  The Psalm was 60, and the songs were "O God, Where are You Now?" W/M by Sufjan Stevens and "O God, Our Help in Ages Past," W/M by Watts/Croft.  The first song can be found on the album "Michigan."  It contains the following stanzas, rich with meaning and content:

"Oh God, where are you now? Oh God, save somehow

There's no other man who could raise the dead

So do what you can to anoint my head"

Stevens is a young artist (and Hope College Grad) who has gained notoriety for his plan to write an album about all 50 states.  "Michigan" and "Illinois" have been released, "Oregon"  is currently being researched.  Being an Episcopal, he no doubt approves of this liturgical use of his music.

We interspersed the three verses with the reading of the Psalm and with times of instrumental music (comping).  We closed the time of Lament with the promises of scripture found at the end of Psalm 60 ("Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless.  With God we will gain the victory...) and an almost a capella version of "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" (verse one only).  We led the entire section in the musical key of C major for ease of singability.

I hope that this has been helpful and inspirational as you seek to plan meaningful times of lament in your own context.

pax, pba

Foothold

Someone I know well recently entered -- and won -- a Hymn Search contest held at Fuller Seminary.  One purpose of the song was to commemorate the Fortieth Anniversary of the School of Psychology. 
The other was to articulate something about trust in God for healing.  The author thought Psalm 25 was an excellent expression of this sort of prayer, and so used it as a basis for this text.  It is meant be sung to the tune Kingsfold.  Here is the text and melody laid out, with chords hand-written above.  This harmonic arrangement of the tune is courtesy of the jazz pianist/preacher Bill Carter.  To get a sense of the arrangement, click here for a down-and-dirty homemade Mp3.

Come to the Table

A wonderful way to make explicit the sacramental connection between our everyday life and its distillation in liturgy is to sing a variation on the Great Prayer over our ordinary meals. Chip Andrus, a pastor, teacher, and musician with the Office of Theology and Worship for the PC(USA) has written a lively folk prayer that works well for just this purpose.             

Sing upbeat, but not too fast—maybe 88 bpm. The song is syncopated throughout, but is notated more simply here for easier learning. Once you’re familiar with it as written, attempt appropriate syncopation where you feel it (the third “come” in the first measure should slightly anticipate the third beat). If you have trouble, ask your kids for help. The song repeats the chorus a few times, and then concludes moving to the tonic and repeating “come.”

This wonderfully percussive tune works best antiphonally. When the meal is almost ready, begin to sing (“Come, come, come!”) as you bring the food from the kitchen to the table. Or send out a family member to the corners of the house, singing and summoning everyone together. When all are assembled, conclude with a spoken prayer to God, since this song is a call to pray and feast rather than a prayer itself.

It’s especially fitting to pray following a classic prayer pattern, like a collect. So, for instance, begin by (1) addressing God and naming one of God’s attributes (“God, you are . . .”); then (2) speak a word of thanks and/or make an appeal rooted in that attribute (“we thank you for/help us to . . .”); finally, (3) express an aspiration rooted in God’s character, an outcome that makes sense of the request (“so that we might . . .”). For example, (1) Lord Jesus, you said that wherever two or three are gathered together, you are with them. (2) We thank you, then, for this good food, for those who made it, for each other, and for your presence with us as we eat. Open our eyes to see you at this table, (3) so that we might more easily see you when we leave it.

(For more table graces for the home, see here.)

The Lord Be with You

A few years ago, my worship team tackled the question of how to begin our 'contemporary' worship services.  Sometimes the band would just walk up front and begin to play. Sometimes there'd be a time of teaching new music.   Sometimes there would be a song that felt like a prelude.  Other times there were announcements. 

We wanted to create a dramatic launch to the service ("Here we go!") without succumbing to the cultural forces that pull us toward making the whole thing an entertaining show ("Ladies and Gentlemen!  Your attention please!")

We decided to begin with an appropriate greeting -- in the Lord's name, if not in the Lord's voice -- and then remind each other of why we've gathered: to worship, to renew the covenant of grace between God and God's people.  What we came up with was a short opening song.  Click here for the music in lead sheet format.  And here for an Mp3 recording.

It's free for anyone's use - but do report that use to CCLI. 

Technology in Worship

Last week I finished writing a piece for Fuller Seminary's 3x-yearly magazine of theology & commentary, Theology News & Notes. This particular issue's theme is the place of music in worship, and I was asked to contribute a piece on the effect of technology on worship music. My thesis, simply put, is a truism borrowed from the computer industry -- hardware drives software:

As the church seeks to make the most of certain hardware technology – amplification, lyric projection, and looping DJ software, for example – we can expect that our worship software, i.e. the style of our worship itself, will also change. It may expand in potentially wonderful and creatively enculturated new ways, following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Or it may be narrowed in ways that are hip, but historically, and even theologically, suspect.

The article then examines the three aforementioned technologies, pointing out the good and the bad, the helpful and the heinous.

The idea for the piece arose arose out of a seed of an observation about hardware and software and the composition of some contemporary worship songs:

I have begun to see signs that some songs are being composed, perhaps unconsciously, not just to take advantage of the technology, but bounded by its peculiar limitations. The structure of the songs and the shape of the melodies are being molded to fit the size of the screen and the super-sized words projected onto it. Thus, we no longer get lyrical lines of melody and text; we get textual phraselets and melodic motifs -- mere musical fragments, not bearing repetition, but repeated nevertheless. And repeated.

Lest I appear a Luddite here, I hasten to add that in the article I have many good things to say about amplification, projection, and yes, DJ looping software. But I am concerned that we are less discerning than we might be. I challenge you, for example, to visit this website and find a single theological insight brought to bear on the use of technology in worship. Sigh. There's a lot of work to be done.

I am quite interested in hearing from others who read this blog: what effects on worship style/software do you see as a result of the church's adoption/adaptation of certain hardware technologies?  Do you have examples of really wonderful and fitting uses of technology? 

For example, I have seen pastors use video clips in sermons, sometimes well, sometimes not so much.  But the time I really thought a video clip was used well in a service was when the sanctuary went dark just before the congregational prayer, and we saw a 5 minute home-made video that had been taken the week before by the pastor going to visit some of the elderly folks at the nursing home and a couple of shut-ins.  These people told little bits of their stories, and said what they wanted prayer for.  Some couldn't talk, and then the pastor did a bit of voice-over.  It was a powerful introduction to congregational prayer - reminding us again that we are a body of Christ, united with many others, present and not present, as we gather together to pray.

New Kid on the Blog

First, some words of introduction. This will serve not only to let you know something about me - Andrew Donaldson -- but also to introduce some of the subject areas that I am passionate about.

I am Pastoral Musician and Worship Enlivener (more on that title in a moment) at Trafalgar Presbyterian Church in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. I am currently President of the Hymn Society in the US and Canada.   And along with my wife, I am part of Hilariter, an inter-denominational group of singers and players, based in Toronto, Canada, committed to diversity in worship and to exploring the worship resources available from around the world.

I am a lapsed (and recently re-activated) percussionist with a background in choral music, composition and classical guitar. I'm also a student of the renaissance lute.

An unusual background for a church music director, I'll admit - or at least it was when I began directing church music in the early eighties. At my first congregation, Beaches Presbyterian Church in Toronto, we developed a music program that included "traditional" strophic hymns, world music, and original music written by congregational members, including myself.

I had learned the global music from Pablo Sosa, Patrick Matsikenyiri and I-to Loh, among others, at a World Council of Churches Worship conference in the middle eighties. To it, we added some contemporary music, chants from Taizé, and songs from the Iona Community.

Over the course of twenty years, we found that this had transformed several key aspects of our worshipping community.  First, the liturgy had become richer, more varied. From being a service with four hymns, some prayers and a sermon, it offered many ways for young and old, able and disabled, musical and not-so-musical, - the whole worshipping community - to pray, to praise, to lament, to celebrate as a singing community.

Second, the role of the choir had become something different. It could still offer a Tallis motet or a Gibbons verse anthem, but it could also lead the congregation in a Zulu church song, or an African American spiritual. It featured instrumentalists as well as singers: flute, violin, cello, concertina, recorders, percussion, guitar, and many others. It had also grown from being a performing choir into a group of music leaders that nurtured the song of the congregation.

Third, my own role had changed, and for a while we didn't have a name for it. It wasn't until Michael Hawn, from Perkins School of Theology at SMU in Dallas, came to worship with us at Beaches Church in the fall of 2003, that we realized that my role had become that of an “animateur” or an “enlivener”. This is a term proposed by Michael Warren, a Roman Catholic educator, quoted in Dr. Hawn's book “One Bread, One Body” (Alban Institute 2003).

When I moved to my current church just outside of Toronto, we decided that this word “enlivener” should be part of my title. We find that it stimulates ongoing discussion on my role in the music and worship of the community.

I am passionate (in a polite, Canadian sort of way) about nurturing congregational song. I also love exploring ways of bringing scripture to vibrant, dramatic, comforting and disturbing life in worship.  We are also discovering that what we have been doing for twenty years has a new title: The Emerging Church.