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Abstract of “Music and the Patterns of Christian Worship” written for the Liturgy and the Arts Seminar, Calvin College, 2002
We all know music plays an important part in the Christian worship of God. But what role does it play? Should it play that role? Is that role a necessary one? Why does it play the role it does? How can choices for music be made that create effective worship? This essay explores answers to these questions, meditating on the nature of worship and liturgy, reflecting on Scriptural references to worship and music, and providing a cyclical account of the relationship between worship and music, each flowing from the other.
“The essays of both Mark McLeod-Harrison and Charlotte Kroeker are available in entirety in a book edited by Charlotte Kroeker entitled Music in Christian Worship: At the Service of the Liturgy, published by Liturgical Press (April 2005).”
Abstract of “Choosing Music for Worship” – developed during the Wolterstorff seminar during the summer of 2002 at Calvin College.
Just as we would choose with care the words we speak and the texts or prayers we read in worship, so good liturgy also depends on the choice of music, the choice of text that accompanies that music, and the way the text and music fit together as a coherent whole. In addition, the music must “fit” the congregation, so that it can be an effective bridge for encouraging worship to occur, or as a response to worship that has just occurred. In order to move from the desire for good liturgy to effective liturgy itself, several aspects of the music for that liturgy must be considered, namely, aesthetic excellence, fittingness of the style of the music to its placement in the liturgy, fit of the music and its implied/apparent theology to the action of the liturgy, and the context and nature of the worshipping body where the music will function. While the first three aspects can be addressed in the abstract, the nature of the context can be addressed by answering questions that guide choices for a particular place, time, and people.
“The essays of both Charlotte Kroeker and Mark McLeod-Harrison are available in entirety in a book edited by Charlotte Kroeker entitled Music in Christian Worship: At the Service of the Liturgy, published by Liturgical Press (April 2005).”