The Lenten Fast on blog posting is almost over. Meanwhile, you might want to check out my Good Friday post over on the Worship Connect blog for the Evangelical Covenant Church.
If you live in the Twin Cities, I invite you to participate in the Tenebrae (service of shadows) at Bethlehem Covenant Church this evening at 7 pm. You can also find information on that website about Easter Worship and other events at the church.
Monday, A Pastor Sings returns.
Busy week ahead! This is the week that pastors in the Evangelical Covenant Church gather for professional development, spiritual renewal, and fellowship at the Midwinter Conference. This isn’t my year to attend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t participate. All the worship events are live-streamed here. Meanwhile, those of us who can’t be in San Diego are covering pastoral duties on the home front. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for creative writing. Good thing I can read faster than I can write, and this seems a good opportunity to share some reading (and viewing) material that jumped out at me this past week.
In fact, I may take a cue from Rachel Held Evans, and do a weekly synopsis of web links that I think you might find useful or enjoyable. She calls hers “Sunday Superlatives” but Monday Mash-Up makes more sense to me – what church musician hasn’t been thrilled to discover two songs fitting together in unexpected ways? See if you can find this week’s theme (and no, it had nothing to do with the Super Bowl).
This is the blog that started it all, from a photographer who doesn’t enjoy being on the other side of the camera.
Then there was Cameron Russell’s TEDx Talk, and over at Her.Meneutics, this thoughtful response to it from Caryn Rivadeneira.
Eugene Cho’s piece is more than a year old, but surfaced this week in a friend’s feed, and includes a video that is still worth watching.
And this from Kim Gentes popped up on my LinkedIn feed this week. Be sure to read the comments.
Finally, Jeff Scheetz chimes in with a broader question.
So how are you being authentically who God made you to be? What are the implications for worship and spiritual health in all this?
I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a post about breath for singing. It’s coming, I promise…
My step-dad claimed he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But he loved to listen to music. Whenever my best friend came to our house, he asked her to play “that Show-pan Polly-naze” for him. He only knew one Chopin Polonaise, and though my friend knew several, she would sit at the piano and crank out Opus 40, No. 1 as if it were the only one ever written. And my dad would sit back and smile, nodding slightly, not sure why he liked it but happy to hear it nonetheless.
Put a hymnal in his hands, though, and he would shake his head and smile his toothy grin and say, “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
But he could. He just didn’t know how to make the tune that came out of his mouth be the same one everyone else was singing around him. He could sing, and he even had a pleasant bass baritone voice, but he couldn’t match pitch.
Matching pitch is not so much a vocal skill as an aural one. It takes a lot of trial and error for some children to find and reproduce a tone sung to them, but nearly everyone with good hearing can match pitch with a little practice. As a young music teacher, I observed my mentor encouraging kindergarten students with a phrase I often repeated: “I just have to find the right key to help you unlock this door.” The puzzle was finding the right set of pitches for the student to experience success just once, then build on that success. We would start with whoops and hollers, making our voices into roller coasters or parachutes falling from imaginary helicopters, moving on to “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” chants and mimicry.
But sometimes I had to work harder to help a child find and reproduce a specific pitch or melodic pattern. Usually, this meant having the child sing to me, and then echoing with my own voice what I had just heard. As I modeled the process of matching pitch, I was also affirming that the sound the child was making was, in fact, a singing sound. Apparently, no one ever did this for my step-dad. He went through life thinking he couldn’t sing, because no one ever taught him how to match pitch.
Yet, if God sings (Zephaniah 3:17) and we are made in God’s image, doesn’t it stand to reason that each of us can sing, that we were created to sing? The question then becomes, what song are we singing? And who is matching pitch with us?
Now let’s think about your pastor for a moment. “Yeah, well, my pastor can’t sing,” you may be thinking. Consider, however, that your pastor is singing, has been singing, will continue to sing, but the problem may not be one of vocalization. It may be simply that you and your pastor are not matching pitch with each other. Maybe your pastor is trying to lead your church in a direction you don’t want to follow, or your pastor is changing things that you want to stay the same. Maybe your pastor isn’t listening to you. Maybe you listen to your pastor only through the filter of your own song.
What would happen if you stopped for just a moment, to really listen to your pastor’s song?
What would happen if you stopped for just a moment, to really listen to God’s song?
Can you hear a little bit of God’s song as your pastor sings? If they aren’t exactly the same tune, are they at least in harmony with each other?
Can you hum a few bars?
Once a month, I contribute to the Worship Connect blog on the Covenant Church website. Here’s the link to today’s post – and a promise to write more regularly in the New Year. until then, Merry Christmas!
Getting ready to get ready…
The O Antiphons are a set of medieval refrains originally used before and after the singing of the Magnificat (Mary’s song). Each invokes the Messiah under a different title derived from the Old Testament. This title is then amplified and followed by an appeal to “come” and save us in a particular way. Around the 12th century the antiphons were collected into a Latin verse hymn, which was later translated by John Mason Neale into the hymn we know as “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” As you prepare your heart for the first Sunday in Advent, I invite you to ponder these verses:
O come, thou Wisdom from oh high, embracing all things far and nigh;
in strength and beauty come and stay;
teach us your will and guide our way.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
How have you seen God’s wisdom at work in your life?
O Come, O come O Lord of might, As to your tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times you gave the law
In cloud, and majesty, and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
How is God’s power evident in your life?
O Come, O Branch of Jesse, free your own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell your people save,
And give them vict’ry o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
Has death threatened you, or someone you love?
O Come, O Key of David, come, and open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
When has heaven come near to you? How did you know?
O Come, O Dayspring, come and cheer our presence by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadow put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
Where do you find joy?
O Come, O King of Nations, come, O Cornerstone that binds in one:
Refresh the hearts that long for you;
Restore the broken, make us new.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
How has the diverse beauty of God’s Kingdom become evident to you?
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
As Advent approaches, how will you worship the Son of God?
This week is a gift, and I hope I do not waste it. Usually, the first Sunday of Advent falls on the weekend when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday feasting pushes Advent’s sense of expectation aside. Black Friday and Cyber Monday scream for our attention, drowning out the stillness of waiting that Advent brings. Honoring the beginning of Advent with festive worship becomes a challenge when most of the choir has traveled over the river and through the woods for the long weekend.
Not this year.
The beautifully long week between Christ the King and Advent One has no other holiday cluttering its rhythm. The shopping season kick-off has settled down to a dull roar, and there is time, sweet time. Time to plan for festive worship. Time to clean house and take out the Advent wreath without feeling exhausted already. Time to read the Word slowly, to listen for new revelations in old, familiar words. Time to grow expectant, waiting for the Waiting to begin.
The temptation is to use this “extra” week for catching up on unfinished business. I am resisting that temptation with all my might. I want to savor these moments at the end of the liturgical year. This week is the hour or so after all the guests have left the New Year’s Eve party that was Christ the King Sunday, when the dishes are done and the house is quiet. How will you spend it, this luxury of time?
We used a prayer of confession yesterday in worship that comes straight out of The Covenant Hymnal. I should probably mention that we do not, as a rule, include a prayer of confession in the order of worship. Confession might be part of the monthly Communion liturgy, or a regular feature of Lent, but it isn’t a weekly element of worship in our church. Sometimes I wish we did, but we don’t.
We added it this week, because the preaching text was Isaiah 6:1-8, in which the prophet Isaiah had a vision of God in his temple, and Isaiah’s reaction to this experience is to cry out, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips…” A seraph touches Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal from the altar, and the passage concludes with God asking “Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah answers, “Here am I! Send me!” Pastor Ryan wanted to draw a parallel between our order of worship and Isaiah’s worship vision, which moves from praise/adoration to confession, then forgiveness, and finally commissioning. It was good worship, and many people commented on how well it flowed, how meaningful it was to them, and how all the elements worked together.
But there was one line in that prayer, #909 in the hymnal, that stuck with me through both services, and I’m still grappling with it as I prepare an early Thanksgiving feast for my son (who will not be with us on Thursday, when we travel to his grandmother’s house).
Consider this:
“O Lord, we have conserved the bounty of your love as though it could be exhausted, and we have wasted the bounty of your universe as though its resources were imperishable.”
We have conserved the bounty of your love as though it could be exhausted. Conserved, saved, put away in a dark cupboard like jam and jelly … hoarded. And I realized, to my dismay, that this was true. I have been trying to hoard God.
Just like those folks wandering in the desert who thought they’d better collect a little extra manna “just in case, you know, we run out or something,” I try to save a little extra experience of God’s love for some time when I don’t feel so loved. And just like those folks wandering in the desert, I find that whatever I thought I was saving cannot be held in reserve. God isn’t something you save for a rainy day. God is here and now.
When the Apostle Paul was feeling sorry for himself, God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is no need to hoard that grace. It is sufficient.
How do you hoard God? What will it take to let go, and depend on that all-sufficient grace he so willingly offers?
Thanks to all of you who read yesterday’s inaugural post, and especially to those of you who offered encouragement for this endeavor!
Now for some ground rules as we move forward:
1. I promise to post regularly, but never on Sunday. Probably not on Wednesdays, either. I’m a part-time worship pastor, and these two days comprise 70% of my workweek hours. In other words, I’m kinda busy on Sundays and Wednesdays, and that ministry is my first priority.
2. Yesterday’s post was an anomaly: I won’t be using old material, as a rule. “God sings!” seemed a good introduction to my personal theology of music and worship. It tells you a lot about who I am, and who I think God is. I wanted to get that foundation laid right away, but now it is my hope to build on that foundation with new bricks. One by one.
3. This blog is not about me. I have avoided creating a personal blog (until now) because I know how easily I can be sucked into narcissism, and expounding daily about my personal inner life seems oh-so-narcissistic to me. But this blog is really an invitation to conversation, so I invite you to leave me comments and interact with what you see here. I especially invite you to disagree with me – we all need more frank discussion in our lives, I think. “As iron sharpens iron… (Proverbs 27:17).” I promise to respond.
4. That said, let’s keep our discourse civil, shall we? I am blessed to serve in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and one thing we affirm is something called “Freedom in Christ.” You can learn more about it here. That freedom allows us to differ on non-essentials while we agree on this fundamental belief: Jesus Christ is Lord. (We agree on some other stuff, too, but this is enough to get the conversation started.)
Four Rules is plenty.
Clarification:
Yesterday I mentioned that Luther Seminary had “announced that it is eliminating it’s graduate program in church music next year.” That was a mistake. They are not eliminating the Master of Sacred Music program, but they do plan to suspend it while they figure out how to move forward after Paul Westermeyer retires. Here is what they posted on the Luther Seminary Facebook page on Thursday:
Luther Seminary’s Sacred Music program has been very influential in equipping excellent leaders for worship, music and the arts. We are proud of this contribution. In recent years, we’ve seen significant changes. Churches tell us their worship and music needs are changing. We’ve also experienced a decline in the number of students coming to Luther Seminary’s Master of Sacred Music (M.S.M.) program. And, Paul Westermeyer, our respected colleague and leader of the Master of Sacred Music program at Luther Seminary, has announced his plan to retire in June 2013.
Given the changing congregational needs and Paul’s upcoming retirement, we have decided to not recruit new students for our Master of Sacred Music program for the 2013-2014 school year. We will, of course, ensure that our current students continue to receive an excellent education at Luther Seminary and complete their degrees in the M.S.M. program.
The faculty at Luther Seminary is committed to establishing a vision and moving the study of worship, music and the arts forward at Luther. As part of our overall curriculum revision work, we will take this next year to explore ways to proceed and build on the excellence we’ve established in equipping leaders to meet the critical needs of worship and music in the church.
Please keep this process in your prayers as we seek God’s guidance for how we can best respond to the changing needs of the church.
Please do keep this fine program in your prayers, and pray especially for those who have worked so hard to build it into an exemplary training ground for church musicians. I lament that Bethel Seminary, where I received my MDiv, offers no courses related to worship planning, worship elements, or music in worship. I hope Luther recognizes its important role in the broader faith community, and handles this transition well.
What should be included in a pastor’s musical training? What is the best way to teach pastors how to lead worship? Please share your thoughts!
As I embarked on my journey into ministry, a singing colleague commented, “the world needs more pastors who can sing!” This thought has stuck with me as I ponder the ways God constantly prods me toward a broader view of worship. I’m reminded of something I wrote a few years ago:
Hear the beautiful five-part blessing in Zephaniah 3:17:
“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
He will rejoice over you with singing. I remember the first time I read these words and realized, “God sings!” In worship, we do a lot of singing to God and about God. But consider the idea of God singing. If we are made in his image, and we sing, then doesn’t it make sense that our voices must be an echo of God’s voice?
The whole idea of ruach – God’s breath moving through our own lungs and vocal folds as an expression of his Spirit – shapes my theology of singing. Singing is putting pitch to breath. Singing is sound we make during the process of respiration. As we inspire breath to sustain a singing tone and expire that breath in a stream of sound, we conspire with others who sing alongside us. What transpires has the power to transform us, as we sing praise, prayers, scripture, and hymns that stay with us long after the song ends.
There are over 150 references to singing in the Bible. Only this verse has God doing the singing, and when God sings, he is rejoicing, loving, and protecting his people. That means you and me. Singing is a pleasant endeavor for God.
Listening means paying attention to what you hear. It is a conscious decision to focus attention, and to filter out the sounds that do not belong to that focus. I think God is singing all the time, maybe even right now singing into your heart. The challenge is to truly listen, and to join in the song.
So, how does God sing into your life through his Word, and through the music that weaves together our corporate worship experiences? How are you paying attention to what you hear, and how is God using your voice to enrich the harmony of the whole? I hope in these posts, you will find some encouragement to lift your voice, even as you listen deeply for God’s voice singing over you.
Always. Be. Reforming.
Processing with God: Narrative Lectionary, Liturgy, Prayers
The Cricket Pages
Reasonable Living in a Time of Chaos
Sean Dietrich's column on life in the American South.
Wesleyan Faith Today
A daily dose of God’s touch in a minute...
Honoring God, Encouraging People
Life from the inside out.
Looking at the Contemplatives and Mystics
The website of historian Chris Gehrz
Reaching all people, impacting lives!
Thoughts Shared from the heart.
Philosophy. Theology. Everything else.
renewed compassion
What is going to happen?
A pastor sings 