Posts Tagged ‘Liturgy’

sundry things…

1 Comment » Written on July 9th, 2011     
Filed under: Architecture, Arts, Better Together, Intergenerational, Leadership, Liturgy, Local Church, Multicultural, Music, Order of Worship, Resources for Worship, Style of Worship, Technical Arts, Theology, Visual Arts
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It’s been a busy week over on the Better Together Facebook page for lead worshippers and those who think about worship in the Covenant. Many things were discussed; I used the word ‘sundry’ above, but now realize that can mean ‘trivial’ or ‘unimportant’. I’ll leave it up to you, dear reader, to make up your own mind how trivial these are.  A brief survey of the topics includes:

Heritage Hymns (“how did you get to be a worship pastor when you don’t know………..?” fill in the title of your favorite Swedish hymn or song)

“when will the HymnBook/Book of Worship be available/searchable online?” Continue Reading »



Strength in diversity

Post a Comment » Written on June 10th, 2011     
Filed under: Better Together, Leadership, Liturgy, Songwriting, Style of Worship, Writing and blogging
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In encouraging fellow worship leaders to sign up and start commenting on the Facebook discussion page, “Better Together”, I don’t think any of us anticipated the breadth or depth of topics that might be covered. Today there are 135 of us from various churches across the Covenant, and the diversity of topics and perspective is amazing. During this week alone, posts ranged from practical issues to deep theology and philosophy.

Examples of the practical side would include:

- what type of instrument and equipment the guitarists use,

- our preference and the acoustic effect of stage platform coverings (more reflected sound from a wooden stage is better for a choir, but for a rhythm section it’s best to use carpeting) and

- the disposition and timing of going to two services, with or without simultaneous Sunday School classes.Throughout these topics, we’re reminded that this forum is populated with skilled musicians and artists who make technical and pragmatic decisions every day, encouraging and enabling ministry through the arts and leading by example. Continue Reading »



Joining the Conversation

Post a Comment » Written on June 3rd, 2011     
Filed under: Better Together
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There’s been a lot of good discussion this past week over in the Better Together Facebook group, from technology questions (“What type font do you use for projection - worship lyrics, sermon content, etc.?”) to worship programming discussions (“What does everyone typically do song-wise for communion Sundays? We have communion once a month, and I’m looking for new ideas for contemporary songs as well as hymns.”) to music recommendations (“not everyone will agree with me, but i think i just found the coolest worship record ever made and it’s not even out yet. check it out… theroyalroyal.tumblr.com“). We’ve talked about instruments (“Does anyone lead worship with a classical guitar instead of a steel string?”) and aesthetics/theology (“Where do you normally put your drums? As I visited different churches last summer, I noticed that the drums and the cross seemed to switch places from church to church…”). And one member brought up the concept of Call and how we understand it (“I’ve always struggled with the idea of “call” in my life. How did you end up leading worship in whatever capacity?”). Continue Reading »



More on The Turn

7 comments Written on September 25th, 2008     
Filed under: Church History, Church Year, Culture, Style of Worship
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This morning, Scot McKnight suggests we respond to the liturgical turn among low church evangelicals, and he offers some particulars in his third post on this topic. 

Scot thinks, as do I, that this trend is not an invitation to return to the prayers and hymnody of the 20th Century. It’s more complicated than that. He mentions some teaching and preaching approaches that could move us toward a reasoned response to the trend. These take work, thought and creative synthesis. There is no “book” that contains tidy scripts for us to follow. He writes:

Continue Reading »



Liturgical Turn?

5 comments Written on September 22nd, 2008     
Filed under: Church History, Church Year, Liturgy, Style of Worship, Theology
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Are churches becoming more liturgical? Check out these reports.

Today, Scot McKnight is talking about college students converting from evangelicalism to other traditions. He asks:

What is going on? There is a rise, a burgeoning rise, of young college students converting from low church evangelicalism, with its anemic, unhistorical ecclesiology, to the great liturgical traditions: Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Three students this semester have already told me they are considering converting.

I know people who have converted for this reason. I also know evangelical pastors and worship leaders who use all manner of traditional worship resources for two reasons: 1.) They have a personal affinity for high church language and 2.) They are students of culture, who notice our growing interest in the words and symbols of historic Christianity.

Scot ends his post with a charge:

The conversion of young low church evangelicals to liturgical traditions should hardly surprise us. What we should be doing is correcting our weaknesses by listening to those converting.

Any thoughts?



Yahweh?

4 comments Written on September 17th, 2008     
Filed under: Articles, Bible, Liturgy, Theology
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According to this article on the Christianity Today website the Vatican
has ruled that the word “Yahweh” should no longer be used in worship in
Roman Catholic churches.  The reason for this ruling is the longstanding
Jewish practice of not pronouncing this name of God–known in its Hebrew
form as the “Tetragrammaton.”  The original word contains no vowels,
making it unpronounceable, and even transliterations of the word like
“Yahweh” and “Jehovah” are not spoken by Jews (and now Catholics) out of
respect for the holiness of God.

Continue Reading »



Deeper? or Different

3 comments Written on August 20th, 2008     
Filed under: Core Values, Liturgy, Style of Worship
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Sometimes people are critical of preachers, songwriters, worship leaders and certain churches for trying to be relevant and missing the deeper relevance of tested, published, traditional, enduring liturgy. You might want to read this CT article .

Continue Reading »