Worship Weblog
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Walking tour of St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Community
Walking tour of St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Community in Waupaca, Wisconsin: 20MB PowerPoint file
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Reflections on children in worship
Reflections on children in worship by Erica Schemper at her blog.
Related
Resources on intergenerational worship and children in worship
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New worship CD recording from Calvin Capella choir
From the Calvin College Music department:
The Music Department is pleased to announce the release of Jubilate! - a new CD recording by Capella. The two-disc set is Capella’s first CD under its new director, Dr. Joel Navarro who took over in 2002 when Prof. Merle Mustert, its previous director, retired. The album contains selections from its 2006 spring break tour repertoire which was composed of world music, settings of poetic texts and visions, psalms, spirituals, old hymns, and new anthems. (For a complete listing of pieces on the CD, please visit [link])
Joseph the Mystery
Terry Mattingly’s most recent syndicated religion column, on The Nativity Story, talks about the liberties the filmmakers took with the character of Joseph, given a lack of biblical material about him:
For decades, Mary has received lots of screen time in traditional Hollywood movies dealing with the life of Jesus. New Line Cinema’s attempt to create a new biblical epic is unique in that
Joseph receives as much attention as Mary. Joseph’s trials, doubts and decisions drive the plot.The problem is that biblical accounts offer little information about St. Joseph, other than his standing as a “just man” from the House of David who lived in Nazareth. He is an important figure in the Nativity narratives and he was alive when Jesus was 12 and the family visited Jerusalem. According to early church traditions, Joseph was a widower who already had children—who are mentioned in the New Testament as brothers and sisters of Jesus.
continued ... (link not yet operable as of this posting)
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Reading on Pastoral Care and Human Suffering
Reading from a seminary course on Pastoral Care & Human Suffering, posted by Meg, a seminary student.
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Seerveld on Thanksgiving
For American Thanksgiving last week, Canadian scholar Gideon Strauss quoted this from Calvin Seerveld’s “In the Fields of the Lord”:
The complexity of creation’s problems and the incompleteness of believers’ consecration must not divert us from our calling: to try to translate our Christian captivity and allegiance into specific, comprehensive and meaningful historical service to God Almighty, in the realisation that only people acting out of wholehearted gratitude to God for their being taken up into the body of Christ are good stewards of the office and gift entrusted to them. And it is this evangelical Reformational spirit—prompted, for example, by Paul’s words to Timothy that nothing of creation is secular but all is good, holy! sacred! if able to be received with thanksgiving and kept in the context of effective witness to God’s glory (1 Timothy 4: 1-11)—that offers us [...] sound biblical direction. Then we shall neither overestimate the effect of sin upon the world and reject all non-ecclesiastical realms as not significant to God, nor shall we underestimate sin’s perversion of the world with its culture and try only to add Christian touches here and there; but we shall see that whatever one dedicatedly executes proportionate to one’s full qualifications (whether as mother, senator, or janitor) is full-time service in the Kingdom of God ...
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Mariano Avila studies Mexican churches for second PhD
We celebrate with Mariano Avila of Calvin Theological Seminary, who earlier this month completed a second doctoral degree—this one in the social sciences at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.
Dr. Avila’s dissertation was on evangelical churches in Mexico.
Dr. Avila was featured in our Vital Worship story on worship in Mexico, and spoke on Ephesians and worship at Symposium 2006.
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Books & Culture on new books on prayer
I work at a place where we meet every Monday morning, share prayer requests, and pray together before going over the week’s schedule. Sometimes I wonder what an outsider would make of it all. And there are moments—we all have them, I think—when I feel like an outsider at prayer myself. Like every year, 2006 has brought shelves of new books on prayer. A couple of the most noteworthy will be reviewed by Lauren Winner in the January/February issue of Books & Culture, Philip Yancey’s Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Zondervan) and David Crump’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (BakerAcademic). But there are others worth reading to which we may not be able to give adequate attention. Let me mention two of these in particular, both of them collections of scholarly essays. The first is Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer, edited by Ruth Langer and Steven Fine (Eisenbrauns); the second is The Phenomenology of Prayer, edited by Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba (Fordham Univ. Press).
Related
Interview with Claire Wolfteich on praying for justice, on our podcast
Interview with David Crump about his new book on prayer, forthcoming on our podcast
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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Reports and pictures from Grants tour ‘06
Index of all reports and pictures from Betty Grit’s 10-day driving tour of recipients of Worship Renewal Grants
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Monday, November 20, 2006
Report from Grants tour ‘06 4
Report from Betty Grit on the final stop of her tour of recipients of Worship Renewal Grants:
At Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, the surrounding streets are lined with parked cars more than an hour before the worship service will begin. Inside the church, Chip Stam, Minister of Music, finalizes details with nine musicians before they pray together to ask for God’s blessing on the service. Soon young families with infants and children, elderly members and visitors, students from nearby Kentucky School for the Blind and from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary enter warmly greeting us and one another. 
Clifton Baptist partnered with CICW in a Vertical Habits Worship Formation grant project. This morning the music and Dr. Bruce Ware’s message based on Psalm 116 focuses our minds and hearts on living a life of Thanksgiving.
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Friday, November 17, 2006
Report from Grants tour ‘06 3: Phone conversation with Betty Grit
Yesterday I spoke by phone with Betty Grit, in the midst of her 10-day tour of grant recipients. An audio clip of our conversation is now featured as a special presentation of our podcast.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Report from Grants tour ‘06 2
Report from Betty Grit, written from Florida, where she and her husband Nelson continue their tour of recipients of Worship Renewal Grants. (More reports)
Students at Candler School of Theology begin classes late on Monday because many of them drive into Atlanta from congregations throughout Georgia where they serve on Sunday. This Monday morning found eleven staff and students gathered with project director Barbara Day Miller to reflect on their worship renewal grant project. At a leadership retreat prior to the school year plans were developed to invite participation of students in planning and leading worship. Currently almost 200 students have made a semester long commitment to be part of a POWR TEAM (Planning, Organization, Worship, Reflection) for worship on campus. The leadership team report a renewed energy and enthusiasm for worship at Candler.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Alban Weekly on “Expanding the Leadership Circle”
Most congregations dramatically underutilize their leadership gifts. Stagnation of the leadership circle is neither healthy nor inevitable, and it does little to encourage the creativity that moves us toward God. Here are some ideas for expanding your leadership circle.
Reflect on the current leadership. Although this is often left to a nominating committee, there is work that precedes recruitment. Take your current leaders on a one-day prayer retreat built around the following three inquiries.
- First, ask the leaders to reflect on what serving as a congregational leader has meant to them.
- Next, consider the leadership circle. Who is included? Who is missing?
- Lastly, use your findings to create a plan to expand the leadership circle.
More on Leadership
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InSites newsletter: latest edition
The quarterly InSites e-newsletter features the work of over 20 religion websites funded by the Lilly Endowment. The latest edition features a section on “The Changing Nature of Worship.”
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Upcoming Event: Program honoring composer Raymond Haan
Program honoring composer Raymond Haan
Cutlerville, Mich.
November 20, 2006
The Grand Rapids chapter of the American Guild of Organists offers a free program of organ and choral music by Raymond Haan at Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church. Haan, who has been director at Cutlerville East Christian since 1960, is the composer of some four hundred compositions for organ, voice, choir, handbells, piano and other instruments. Several organists, a 20-voiced choir from different churches, and the Calvin College Handbell Ensemble will participate. Sponsored by the Grand Rapids chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
For more information, see our Calendar of Events.
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