Worship Weblog
World
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
WCC on Creative Commons licensing for churches: ‘Love to Share’
From the World Council of Churches:
* Churches are struggling with the complexity of copyright laws and the restrictions they face when they want to use liturgical resources in a worship setting or publish non-profit worship material.
* It is difficult to find resources that can be freely shared through the Internet.
* It is hard to know how to use worship material from other countries in an equitable and just way.
* It is not easy to know where to go to find advice or to avoid being trapped by intellectual property (IP) laws.Churches, individuals, and Christian and ecumenical organizations are facing challenges when dealing with these issues. Their struggle is intensified because of the larger context of globalization, where the rules of the market dominate and a culture of commodification is everywhere. While it is important to understand the logic of the market and the laws and regulations that apply to intellectual property, there are other issues that need to be taken into consideration.
This document aims to give some direction and guidelines in this task of searching for alternatives to the current situation. It is an effort to raise questions and clarify some possible solutions and alternatives.
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Music • Reading • World • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, June 30, 2008
60 Minutes on the persecution of Christians in Iraq
An abandoned Christian church in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora.
60 Minutes re-aired this story last night on Christian congregations in Iraq. It was a reminder of the harsh persecution that has fallen on Christians in Iraq, most of whom have either fled or been killed by Islamic radicals. And it was a cause for gratitude and awe to see what God is doing in the face of death through Canon Andrew White, a courageous priest ministering in Baghdad (learn more about his foundation, his books, and his work). He and his wounded flock need the fervent prayers of Christians around the world.
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • News • World • Worshipping Communities • (2) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, May 15, 2008
B&C on Charismatic Christianity in South America
Years of skilful interviewing by David Smilde of the men in two churches in dangerous parts of Caracas, Venezuela, conducted during the period just before Chavez, confirm what investigations have shown from Kingston, Jamaica, to Accra, Ghana, and points east. Evangelical, charismatic, and in particular Pentecostal Christianity offers visions and revisions of lives changed for good, spiritually, morally and (so far as may be, given the changes and chances of life) materially. Of course, some fall by the way, because things don’t to work out as hoped, or else they are pulled back into old ways by boon companions. Most encounter experiences which try them “as gold in the fire,” and getting right with God may turn out easier than getting right with a wife or partner. All the same, there is enough evidence of some betterment affecting all the interlinked dimensions of life to vindicate Providence in the eyes of believers rather than the influence of fortuna and fate. Even when sorely tried, Pentecostals turn to ancient, indeed biblical, ways of searching out the ways of God: for example, that he is teaching his children through adversity, that his ways are not as their ways, that their way of life has somehow been displeasing in his sight, and that the goods of this world corrupt our treasure in heaven.
Interdisciplinary Application • News • Reading • World • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
CIRT review of ‘Jesus of Africa’
Review of Diane Stinton’s Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology by Diane B. Stinton from Conversations in Religion & Theology
Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Gerardo Marti on ‘fluid ethnicity’ in JSSR
Gerardo Marti, whose research we’ve been blessed by (see this and this), has a paper in the current issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion:
Fluid Ethnicity and Ethnic Transcendence in Multiracial Churches
Gerardo Marti
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47 (1), 11–16Abstract
Assumptions of racial essentialism lead to inadequate analysis of multiracial churches. Instead, acknowledging ethnic identity as a negotiated phenomenon encourages a richer investigation of how congregational participation stimulates and redefines a person’s racial and ethnic identity. The malleability of ethnic identity is such that it is often obscured in favor of other aspects of self. Ethnographic analysis of two multiracial churches, Mosaic and Oasis, indicates that particularistic ethnic affiliations recede when otherworldly, value-rational interests are emphasized. Ethnic transcendence occurs when members adopt a shared identity based on a uniquely congregational understanding of what it means to be a properly religious person (a proper “Christian,” “Jew,” “Muslim,” “Buddhist,” etc.). In short, the distinctive accomplishment of multiracial congregations is the cultivation of an inclusive religious identity that overrides divisive aspects of ethnic identity. Moreover, recognizing the varying salience of racial and ethnic identity evokes greater caution regarding what can be assumed when researchers apply the label “multiracial” to congregations.
(We may be able to make a copy of this paper available to your church by request.)
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Reading • World • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, February 14, 2008
‘Christ of the Earthquakes’ by Alberto Torres
Alberto Torres portrays Jesus on the cross with his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and Saint John. The Bible tells how at the hour of Christ’s death, darkness fell and the earth trembled. A replica of an anonymous 18th century work in the La Paz Cathedral Museum, this beautiful painting also makes reference to an image of “Christ of the Earthquakes” venerated in the Cuzco Cathedral. continued…
Interdisciplinary Application • Liturgical Arts • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Report from trip to Singapore
Joel Navarro has returned from a trip to Singapore, where he helped lead worship and a conference for the 25th anniversary of the School of Church Music at Singapore Bible College, and provided these pictures.
Above: Lee Chung Min conducts the SBC Choirs, performing Vivaldi’s “Dixit Dominus” and Handel’s “Dixit Dominus,” at the 25th anniversary concert of the SBC School of Church Music.
Below: (from left, front row) conference presenters Glenn Stallsmith, ethnomusicologist for Wycliffe Bible Translators; Dr. Philip Chan of Hong Kong Baptist College; Dr. Joel Navarro of Calvin College.
Leadership • Music • News • World • Worshipping Communities • (1) Comments • Permalink
ByFaith magazine on missionaries and the weaking U.S. dollar
The weakening U.S. dollar is having a profound effect on missionaries scattered all over the world, including those affiliated with the PCA’s Mission to the World (MTW).
“It makes things more expensive in their local currency and increases their cost of living,” said Bill Goodman, MTW’s director of field operations. “This problem is widespread throughout the world—it’s not just Europe that is being affected.”
While previous economic changes have caused support shortages for missionaries in the past, the breadth of this problem is unprecedented.
Christianity Today recently reported that “according to the U.S. Center for World Mission, many missionaries are finding their dollars worth 8 to 12 percent less than they expected this year. In Europe, dollars have lost 45 percent of their buying power since 2002.”
Interdisciplinary Application • News • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Prayer Booth Takes Shape
Now all it needs are some prayers!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Model for worship and culture
Interdisciplinary Application • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
JSNT on the Head-Waiter and Bridegroom in John 2
Head-Waiter and Bridegroom of the Wedding at Cana: Structure and Meaning of John 2.1-12
Jean-Bosco Matand Bulembat, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Vol. 30, No. 1, 55-73 (2007)
This study of the account of the wedding at Cana in Jn 2.1-12 was prompted by reactions to the manner in which Jesus addresses his mother as `Woman’. The literary structure of the pericope is analysed, and the roles of Jesus and his mother compared and contrasted with those of the bridegroom and head-waiter respectively. It is argued that Jesus is the true bridegroom and his mother the true head-waiter in this story, reflecting their status and roles in the divine dispensation. The connotations of `woman’ need to be understood in their cultural context, and approximate those of `mother’, the term of respect with which many African people address women in their societies.
Interdisciplinary Application • Preaching • Reading • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, August 20, 2007
NY Times on Sudanese worshipers in the U.S.
A New York Times story from our backyard here in Grand Rapids on Sudanese pastor Rev. Zachariah Jok Char. We’ve been grateful to have one of the refugees who worships with Rev. Char, Mayom Bol Achuk, as a volunteer at Symposium.
No Longer Lost, a Refugee Accepts Call to Leadership
By NEELA BANERJEEGRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - About 7,000 miles separate Grace Episcopal Church here, where the Rev. Zachariah Jok Char preaches most Sundays, from the small town of Duk Padiet in Sudan, where he was born.
The tally of the miles started about 21 years ago when Mr. Char was 5 and militias backed by the Sudanese government attacked his town during the civil war in the south. He saw the explosions from the field where he was playing, and he fled. He met other boys who had escaped similar attacks, and they started walking.
“I still remember what I was wearing then: red shorts and a T-shirt,” said Mr. Char, sitting in an empty pew one afternoon at the church. “I didn’t have shoes. Some were naked.”
The orphans, mostly boys, walked more than 1,000 miles to Ethiopia from Sudan over three months, Mr. Char said. Later, they were forced to walk to Kenya. Thousands died. The West called them the Lost Boys.
Those boys are men now, and here and in cities like Atlanta and Burlington, Vt., the 3,800 who were resettled in the United States beginning in 2001 are trying to build lives and weave communities. For many, their Christian faith, often Anglicanism, is at the heart of their efforts.
Interdisciplinary Application • News • Reading • World • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
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”.
Events • Grants • Liturgical Arts • Music • World • Worshipers • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Uganda Trip ‘07 Update 8
Photos by Chris Heckert
Eighth report from Uganda by Greg Scheer:
• Report 8
(2:02, 2.4 MB)
Uganda Trip ‘07 Update 7
Seventh report from Uganda by Greg Scheer:
• Report 7 (2:22, 2.9 MB)