Thursday, July 19, 2007
Report on visit with John Bell of the Iona Community
Report from Bethany Vrieland:
On Thursday, July 12, around 75 people gathered at First Presbyterian Church in Schoolcraft, Michigan, from Cadillac to Jackson to Kalamazoo in the Presbytery of Southern West Michigan, to spend a day with Iona Community leader John Bell. This program, which was part of a Worship Renewal Grant from CICW, was the result of much prayer and preparation, and the whole day was very effective, powerful, and smooth.
John Bell came to Schoolcraft by way of Indianapolis (and Ireland!), and it was nothing short of a miracle that he came to be in a small town, in a small Presbyterian church, in Western Michigan. John Bell, who is internationally known for his teaching and work on congregational song, has written many hymns that are used around the world today, and he makes many trips a year to teach his ideas, methods, and songs. He came to Schoolcraft to lead a day-long workshop on congregational song, which was followed in the evening by a “Big Sing”.
Bell, with his Scottish brogue and bare feet, focused throughout the day on the idea of congregational song, and its uses and potential for improvement. He intermittently taught the group several new songs, mostly by rote method (singing a line and having the people repeat it), and he usually taught three or four parts (rather than unison) for each song using this method. His main point in demonstrating this was that congregational song can sometimes be improved more effectively with rote teaching, as books and printed music can distract from learning.
John Bell also emphasized the importance of congregational song itself. He explained that when we sing, we develop our own theology, whether we understand it fully or not. Songs express what we believe, and what we choose to sing says a lot about who we are as people. Song is also important because music is one of the greatest ways for us to express all of our human emotions. This point led into the idea that songs of lament and sadness are all too infrequent in our singing today, and he explained that the Psalms are a great way to fill in this void. There are many psalms of praise that we can sing, but there is also a resource of lament psalms that, along with lament songs that people are writing today, offer us something to sing when we are burdened with the difficulties of life and we don’t know what else to do.
After a break in the afternoon, John Bell led what he called a “Big Sing” in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church of Schoolcraft. In this time, Bell mentioned some of the points about song that he had made earlier in the day (as there were some new people who hadn’t heard the workshop), and he again led the group in a time of singing new songs, all of which were again learned by rote. His enthusiasm for what he taught remained the same, and his teaching was an inspiration and made for a wonderful time of worship. The entire day was quite an amazing experience, and it was able to happen based largely on the dedication and hard work of a few people devoted to worship renewal in the Schoolcraft area.
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