Worship Weblog
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
GC Update 5
Our youngest attendee is 16-month old Alicia, conveyed by Pamela Van Halsema of Covenant Presbyterian Fellowship in Santa Rosa, Calif. (2004 recipient). This is actually Alicia’s second Grants Colloquium; she was here last year at the age of 5 months!
Earlier: GCU 4
GC Update 4
Jonila Kim and Helene Wood take the honors of Farthest Distance Traveled to come to Colloquium. They are here representing the Office of Worship of the Diocese of Honolulu (2005 recipient). They made the 6-hour plane flight from Honolulu to Minneapolis on Sunday (time they spent sleeping, they said), and flew from there to Grand Rapids. I met them around dinner time--noon in Hawaii.
Earlier: GCU 3
Grants Update 3
The Colloquium began with opening worship, including the reading of Romans 12, and a prayer in the setting of SNC 220.
John Witvliet said this week’s events have five purposes: 1) celebrating projects nearing the end of their grant period, 2) safe space for those from congregations and projects that met with hurt or frustration, 3) honing and planning for those projects that are getting underway, 4) considering the long-term worship habits that are formed through grant projects, 5) to look at the big picture of worship across North America.
John drew our attention to the diversity in the room: up-front people and behind-the-scenes people, part-time and full-time, different areas of interest, from preaching to music to drama and more, and denominational background. On the last point, John said, half-seriously, “there are a lot of disagreements in this room,” but he added, “We have a lot in common too.”
Grants Update 2
We were honored to meet Joni-Davis Drake and Thomas Drake of San Joaquin First Nations Fellowship in Lathrop, California (2005 recipient) and receive their generous gifts of greeting. Each CICW staff member was presented with a small wooden carving of a bear on a pin or yarn, handcrafted by Thomas. The bear, Joni said, is a symbol of strength. Joni explained the symbolism of her black, red, and white shawl, which was encircled by a zig-zag line resembling a heartbeat monitor. Drumming in worship represents the heartbeat of the faith of believers, she explained. Each knot in the shawl represents a prayer that was given when it was made.
Earlier: GU 1
Grants Colloquium Update 1
Betty met some of our early arrivals last night and reports:
Dinner last evening with participants who arrived early provided a snapshot of what these next days will bring. Gathered from New England and New Mexico, from Texas and Tennessee and from Hawaii and Pennsylvania, these grant recipients shared their passion for worship and their joys and fears regarding their projects for the renewal of worship. After two hours several expressed that they already had found new friends. Coming from many geographic locations, experiences and backgrounds, they found common interests that encouraged them.
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Monday, June 13, 2005
Grants Colloquium 2005 This Week
This week, 2004 and 2005 Worship Renewal Grant recipients from over 100 congregations in more than 30 states and provinces throughout North America gather at Calvin College for the annual Grants Colloquium, where they will share their experiences and learn from each other. Daily updates will be available here beginning Tuesday night.
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This Week in Worship History: June 12-18
John Wesley’s birthday, Martin Luther’s wedding, and more:
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WOWAW 4
This week’s Words of Wisdom About Worship:
Worship does more than inspire us; it transforms us. It changes the way we live, changes the way we view life’s challenges, changes what truly matters to us, changes the way we see ourselves and others. If worship is only a way to get pumped up so that we can ‘keep on keeping on,’ then worship can too easily be reduced to a means to perpetuate the way we are already living. But worship is more than spiritual motivation. It is about vision and hearing, and worship gives us new eyes and ears, a new set of lenses to look at the world, a new vocabulary allowing us to listen afresh and speak what we could not have said before. To see and hear differently is to live differently, to have the ways we think and feel, make decisions and act as Christians transformed.
-Thomas Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, p.41
• Listen to a reading of this quote(mp3)
by Nathan Bierma
Earlier: WOWAW 3
Interdisciplinary Application • Language • Worshipers • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Thursday, June 09, 2005
This Week in Worship History: June 5-11
June 5, 988 (traditional date): Rus’s Grand Prince Vladimir orders his people to be baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith. He personally oversaw the baptism of the majority of the population of Kiev, the capital of his realm (see issue 18: Russian Christianity).
June 5, 1305: Bertrand de Got, is elected successor to Pope Benedict XI, as Pope Clement V (1305-1314). He would move the seat of papal power to Avignon, France.
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Kidneys, Dice, and Other Biblical Language Tidbits
Recent entries at my language weblog:
Michael DeVries’ sermon at Eastern Avenue CRC on Sunday, “God the Knitter,” mentioned that the Hebrew word for “inward parts” in verse 13 ("For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb") means “kidneys.” more...
Randall Pittman: “Kubeia, which occurs in Eph. iv. 14 only, “by sleight of men” [in the KJV], is rendered “adroitness” by Moffatt. It is a metaphor from dice-playing” more ...
I’ve compiled my bookmarks for different versions of the Bible, including Greek and Hebrew texts, at a separate site on language and the Bible, and set up a Language resource section at CICW.
Interdisciplinary Application • Language • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wi-Fi in Church?
A vicar in Cardiff is offering wireless broadband access from the pews of his church, alongside traditional weddings, christenings and Sunday services.
Reverend Keith Kimber had a wireless node installed in the north aisle after discovering the church’s 4ft-thick walls blocked a city-wide signal. ...
“The church is a sanctuary for everyone, including business people with laptops and mobiles who may want to find a quiet area without lots of noise and loud music to sit in peace and do some work or just send an e-mail.”
News • World • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
‘Christ Plays’ 26-39
From our staff discussion of Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:
I foisted on an unsuspecting staff a printout of an online lexicon listing for nephesh, which shows the diversity of the word’s definition ("soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion") and OT use (more here). Peterson notes that “nephesh” means neck, and that “soul” is a fitting metaphor for the word, since the neck connects the mind and body. I suggested that when we say “I feel it in my soul,” we should gesture not to our heart, but to our neck. Here’s Peterson, in the most eloquent tribute to the neck I’ve ever read:
Interdisciplinary Application • Language • Reading • (2) Comments • Permalink
Christian Churches Together Launch Postponed
This just in:
Black Church Indifference Postpones Launch of Christian Churches Together
Some question whether another ecumenical group is necessary.
By Kevin Eckstrom, Religion News Service | posted 06/08/2005 09:30 a.m.A new group that aims to bring U.S. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians together for the first time has been postponed because the effort has received little interest from black churches, leaders said.
The fledgling group, Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT), has struggled to recruit historically black churches, who have been skeptical that their issues would be addressed in another ecumenical group.
At a meeting last week (June 1-3) in Los Altos, Calif., 67 leaders from some 31 church bodies decided to postpone a formal launch that was scheduled for September to allow more “productive and positive conversation” with churches that have not yet joined.
Leadership • News • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Welcome to Bert Polman
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship is delighted to welcome Dr. Bertus Polman to our staff as senior research fellow (he also joins the Music department faculty). Bert is one of the leading scholars of hymnology and co-edited the Psalter Hymnal Handbook with Emily Brink (he’s also quite an organist!). Here is a recent bio, followed by essays by Bert that are available online.
Bert Polman studied at Dordt College (BA 1968), the University of Minnesota (MA 1969, PhD in musicology 1981), and the Institute for Christian Studies. His teaching covers a wide range of courses in music theory, music history, music literature, and worship, and he’s also into academic administration and Canadian Native studies. His research specialty is Christian hymnody; see the Psalter Hymnal Handbook (1989). Two current projects are: (a) a brief hymnal companion to Praise & Worship songs, and (b) a lengthy history of musical settings of the Song of Mary or Magnificat. Bert is a church organist, a frequent workshop leader at music & worship conferences, and contributes to journals such as The Hymn, and Reformed Worship.
From CICW:
A History of Music in the Christian Reformed Church
a look at the “ecumenical flowering” of Christian Reformed music
The Hymn Question in the Christian Reformed Church
a discussion of the role of hymns in Reformed worship
Praise and Worship Songs
an analysis of praise and worship in terms of compositional, performance, and reception practices
From Reformed Worship:
Songs for Ascension, Pentecost, and Professing Our Faith (71)
Bert’s statement on music and worldview is currently cached from his former home page at Redeemer University College.
Liturgical Arts • Music • News • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Dorothy Bass on Practicing Our Faith
The excellent website (www.practicingourfaith.org) of Dorothy Bass’ wonderful Valparaiso Project reprints an interview with Dorothy from the Feb.24 issue of the Christian Century. (Also see our Vital Worship feature on Dorothy and Sabbath practices).
An excerpt of the interview:
How do these practices relate to what might be termed more fundamental practices such as baptism, the Lord’s Supper, worship and meditating on scripture?
We say in Practicing Our Faith that worship is the most formative practice, the activity in which all Christian practices are distilled. None of the practices we discuss can be done faithfully without constant prayer and Bible study, and we weave biblical material and links to prayer and worship into our treatment of every practice. But we wanted to show how worship and Bible study are not set apart from life. For example, passing the peace is a distillation of a Christian practice that also takes place in the world as we forgive and welcome one another. ...
The concept of practices we’re developing in the project focuses on embodied life in the world. The spiritual practices are an important part of this in that they help us to notice God’s presence in the activities of daily life. But our approach is to call attention to the concrete shape of our communal life and to encourage critical reflection on it.
Interdisciplinary Application • Worshipers • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink