Liturgy, Formation, Mission and Art // A Conference in Durham

On November 8-10, 2011, Duke Divinity Th.D. student and arts pastor David Taylor will host a conference on liturgy, formation, mission and art. While the focus will be on Anglican and Episcopalian traditions, it's for anyone with an appreciation for liturgy. Plenary speakers will include Sam Wells, Mark Galli, Lester Ruth and David Taylor. Click here for more information.

Artful Is God // A Hymn by Richard Hall

Artful is God, creation is his canvas
on which he paints his cosmic masterpiece:
brushstrokes both broad and delicate in detail,
colours and shapes composed in perfect peace.

Read the full hymn here.

Music from The Gathering Church // Hymns Record Kickstarter Campaign

It's been a while since this blog has been updated, but this seems to be an appropriate topic for a return to posting. The Gathering Church of Durham is drawing on its congregation's phenomenal talent pool to produce an album of hymn arrangements, and they are raising money through Kickstarter to fund the project. Check out their video below, support their efforts, and look forward to some great folk-style sacred music coming soon out of the local community.



The Gathering Church is recording a new album of traditional hymns arranged in a different way with plenty of guests. It is a followup to 2010's Christmas Nights EP, a successful start to the recording vision of Chapel Hill's Gathering Church.

This project is larger in scale and needs your support. As it is a full length with guest vocalists, we need a larger recording budget and honorariums for the guests that appear on the record. Your money will go towards this and other expenses involved in manufacturing CDs and artwork along the way.

Proceeds from the recording after expenses will be split evenly between the production team and fundraising for the music ministry of the Gathering Church. Donations are to the church - a 501c3 non-profit - allowing them to be written off on your taxes.

Why the Church Needs Art // David LaMotte

Full article here // Excerpt below

By David LaMotte

To many people, art is superfluous or even distracting from what is truly important. It holds entertainment value, keeping people engaged, or perhaps pleasantly distracted, but is not substantive, and is certainly not integral. To others, it is fundamental; it is a door through which they enter into divine relationship. My heart breaks for the former category. I mourn that they do not get to feel what I feel when I am transported by a powerful piece of music (or dance or painting or sculpture or photography, etc., for that matter, though I primarily write of music here, which is my own primary artistic expression). Art is a way to worship and to be in relationship with God that cannot be replicated by other methods. It is an essential way to connect to God, and should not be discounted or minimized. There are several reasons for people of faith to take it seriously.

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Illuminating the Word of God // The St. John's Bible

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Jeff Strickler

It’s impossible not to be mesmerized by the meticulous craftsmanship of The Saint John’s Bible: exquisite calligraphy done with hand-cut quills, stencils and stamps of gold powder, and pages made of calfskin gilded with gold leaf.

But it’s not an art book, insist the people who are working with it. It’s an interpretation of the Bible that incorporates ancient craft with modern-day worship, and its theological relevance goes far beyond its appearance.

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Worship in Black and White // From Christianity Today

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Reynolds Chapman

Learning the history of the black church has also taught me how to prepare and lead worship. The black church in America was formed, in part, because white churches (as majority cultures are wont to do) assumed that blacks should assimilate into white, Western culture. Thus some African instruments, such as the talking drum, were banned because they were thought to be demonic. This led me to ask, In what ways are my assumptions and impulses in preparing worship music guided by white cultural bias? The cross-cultural tensions between black and white churches are, to be sure, complex, but this historical example helped me realize that I could not simply add a few black gospel songs to the worship set, but needed to think about ways to fully integrate black and white cultures into worship.

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The Hymns That Keep on Going // From Christianity Today

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Robert T. Coote

There are many ways to identify the most lasting or best loved hymns among American Protestants. But what would we find by looking at all 28 hymnals published by mainline Protestant denominations from the late 1800s to the present? Out of almost 5,000 hymns, how many would appear in all 28 hymnals?

Why limit this analysis to mainline Protestant denominations? For one thing, a comparable series of hymnals from evangelical denominations from the late 1800s does not exist. And the hymnals most widely used by evangelical denominations in the past 40 years have been produced by independent publishers and therefore lack clear precedents.

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Hip-Hop Mosaic // From Faith & Leadership

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Jeff Strickler

To say that the Rev. Efrem Smith thinks outside the box isn’t entirely accurate. He doesn’t recognize the box in the first place. Not that others haven’t pointed it out to him, or even tried to put him in one from time to time. But he isn’t having any part of it.

It was an outlook he got early in life. Growing up in an integrated neighborhood in Minneapolis in the 1970s, he questioned why people gathered in segregated worship services on Sunday mornings.

Keep reading...

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Efrem Smith and Curtiss DeYoung will be teaching at the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconcilation's 2011 Summer Institute.

The L.A Times lists its Top 10 Theater/Art/Architecture/Classical/Jazz of 2010

The L.A. Times has its Top 10 lists up for the The Year in The Arts, 2010. Each are listed/linked below by medium. Happy New Year! -- Leif

Top 10 / Theater

Top 10 / Art

Top 10 / Architecture

Top 10 / Classical Music

Top 10 / Jazz

Worship Arts at Duke Divinity // A Service of Praise, Music and the Arts

On October 7, 2010, the usual thrice-weekly community worship service in Goodson Chapel at Duke Divinity School took on a slightly different character. Led by the Gospel Choir and the Praise Team, we participated in a special all-music service. Also ministering during that time was the liturgical dance group and Katherine Hester, a visual artist, who painted throughout the service. It was an incredibly spirit-filled time and a witness to the passion for theology and the arts that is present at Duke Divinity (note that New Creation was not the driving force behind this service!). Here are a series of photos taken by Brian Bryant and posted by Dewey Williams (whose camera Brian was using since Dewey is in the Gospel Choir). The song used in the slideshow is "He Wants It All" by Forever Jones, a selection to which the liturgical dancers ministered.

Composer Robert Kyr Finds Inspiration at Christ in the Desert // From NPR Music

Learn more here.

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This is one of my favorite places on the planet. -- Sarah

Treasures of Heaven // Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe @ the Cleveland Museum of Art

Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe [at the Cleveland Museum of Art Oct. 17] offers visitors a unique glimpse of the Middle Ages, a time when art mediated between heaven and earth and wondrous objects filled churches and monastic treasuries. Relics—the physical remains of holy men and women, and things associated with them—were especially important to the development of Christianity, which emerged as a powerful new religion in the Late Roman world.]

Learn more

Jewish Prayers Are Modernized in New Book // Awesome vs. Awe-Inspiring, Bowels, Hip Hop and Updating Prayerful Language

Full article here // Excerpt below

During the Jewish “Days of Awe,” culminating with Yom Kippur, many Conservative Jews will be turning the pages of a prayer book that no longer regards God as “awesome.”

The word, which has become an all-purpose exclamation that spread from Valley Girls to much of American teenagerdom, has lost its spiritual punch and dignity, say the authors of a new book for the High Holy Days that tries to bring the prayers in tune with contemporary times.

The authors prefer “awe-inspiring.”

“If you say God is awesome, you are immediately in street language, rather than inspiring language,” said Rabbi Edward Feld, who headed the committee that over 12 years wrote and translated the new book.

Keep reading...

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The first thing I thought about after reading this article was the song "Awesome God" by Rich Mullins. Somehow that song still imparts to me something of the original meaning of the word "awesome"--maybe it's the dramatic use of the flat-7 chord (sorry, music geek here). But at what point do English words get so emptied of their forcefulness that they are no longer useful for the same things?

Say we were to update the hymns and prayers in the United Methodist Hymnal. What sorts of changes would we make? I can think of one particularly amusing change that already has been made. One of my favorite hymns (and a lesser-known one) is "Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown." It is a wonderful hymn written by Charles Wesley. Here's how one verse goes in the current edition:

’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me!
I hear Thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love Thou art;
To me, to all, Thy mercies move;
Thy nature and Thy Name is Love.

Lovely, right? Here's the original of the last two lines:

To me, to all, Thy bowels move;
Thy nature and Thy Name is Love.

Good grief! Was Chuck (as my worship professor affectionately calls him) referring to God having a bowel movement?! Well, no--as it turns out, an archaic English use of the word "bowels" meaning great depth or a gut feeling of yearning or compassion (per this book, excerpts of which are available on Google Books). That's great, but it's not really practical to pause during a hymn to explain strange wording that probably already has a few more irreverent types (myself included) rolling with laughter. It's almost too bad, because if you think about it, "bowels" gets at a sort of physicality of God's love and mercy that just doesn't come out in more abstract terms. But moving bowels now evokes images of porcelain and bad magazines, so the change is absolutely worthwhile.

On another note, in this article, Rabbi Feld sets up a contrast between "street language" and "inspiring language." When might the two be one? What do you think about things like The Hip Hop Prayer Book by Timothy Holder?

-- Sarah

Local Church Deploys Worship Arts Group // Orange UMC's Worship Focus Tree

Orange United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill recently assembled a worship arts group for the purpose of encouraging holistic, creative participation on the part of the congregation in crafting an artistic, theological worship space. Their focus is the 9:00 a.m. Pathways service, the contemporary service that is one of three Sunday morning worship gatherings. OUMC has already been intentional about seeking to integrate music and liturgy, searching for a mode of contemporary praise that is still definitively Methodist, and they are expanding their vision to imagine how the visual aspect of the space can contribute to that.

The Pathways service meets in the fellowship hall, and the latest contribution of the worship arts group has been a tree placed at the front of the space. This is the "worship focus tree," and attention has been drawn to the tree in the context of Jeremiah 17:7-8b, "Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water... It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green." It is a real dogwood tree cut from the yard of a church member, with die-cut leaves attached to the limbs.

The plan is for the tree to change with the liturgical seasons, and along with it the worship focus. The worship arts group will continue to brainstorm and produce means of creating a worship space whose focus is reinforced visually in connection with the Scripture. What do you think of OUMC's worship focus tree?

New Creation Asks: Is our plugged-in, digital fixation making us less creative? And what does that mean for today's churches?

Is our plugged-in, digital fixation making us less creative? That's the conclusion that scientists across the country and around the world are coming to in the wake of recent publishings on the subject (see the below excerpt from the recent NY Times article, "Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime").

Tangential questions to consider include what these disclosures mean not only for the future of creativity at large but especially as it relates to faith, ministry, and theology. Are today's churches destined to be implicit enablers of our culture's digital addiction? Or can they help us to un-plug and, in the process, discover a more faithful relation to today's whiz-bang technological gadgetry? -- Leif

Full Article Here // Excerpt Below

by Matt Richtel

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s 1 p.m. on a Thursday and Dianne Bates, 40, juggles three screens. She listens to a few songs on her iPod, then taps out a quick e-mail on her iPhone and turns her attention to the high-definition television.

Just another day at the gym.

As Ms. Bates multitasks, she is also churning her legs in fast loops on an elliptical machine in a downtown fitness center. She is in good company. In gyms and elsewhere, people use phones and other electronic devices to get work done — and as a reliable antidote to boredom.

Cellphones, which in the last few years have become full-fledged computers with high-speed Internet connections, let people relieve the tedium of exercising, the grocery store line, stoplights or lulls in the dinner conversation.

The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

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The Bavarian Town of Oberammergau Remounts Its Singular Passion Play // LATimes Culture Monster

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Lewis Segal

With its picturesque houses painted with Gospel scenes and its imposing Alpine vistas, Oberammergau has atmosphere galore -- but the rain was coming down so hard when I arrived a few weeks ago that my feet were soaked by the time I ran to the theater and took my seat for the first part of the town's Passion Play. It is famously performed every decade as a promise to God, in an outdoor theater large enough to hold 4,700 -- almost the size of the entire population of the small German village.

Keep reading...

The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts // From Spirituality to Hospitality

Our Mission
We are Christians called to minister through our creative gifts to foster worship which makes disciples of Jesus Christ.

We Value
Worship Arts that lead to spirituality and faith formation.
Relationships that lead to hospitality, fellowship and nurture.

We Are...
Musicians, clergy, dancers, artists, lay ministers, and others, all involved in creating, supporting and implementing worship in local congregations.

An affiliate of The United Methodist General Board of Discipleship and serves as a resourcing organization to its members.

An open fellowship that provides training on all aspects of worship through its events and publications.

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In June, FUMMWA hosted the Music and Worship Arts Week at Lake Junaluska, NC. Their website has all kinds of resources, from their Worship Arts publication to an annual Lectionary Guide and more. How did I not know about this? This is awesome! -- Sarah

Speaking God’s Language, With a Gangster Dialect // Rev. Frederick Loos

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Marc Lacey

Frederick Loos was cussing like a sailor the other night, which was surprising given that he is a Roman Catholic priest and his foul-mouthed discourse was delivered from the pulpit to hundreds of faithful gathered before him.

He spoke of God, the need to serve him and how he can transform lives. But interspersed in his sermon was the most colorful of street Spanish, which brought smiles to the faces of many of the gang members, addicts and other young people pressed in tight to listen.

“When you go to China you have to speak Chinese,” the priest explained afterward, slipping out of his vestments. “If you’re speaking to kids you use their idioms. I don’t think God is offended if it brings them closer to him.”

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For Patty Griffin, 'Downtown Church' Opens a Door to Gospel // PBS NewsHour Art Beat

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Lauren Knapp

Alt-country singer Patty Griffin was not an easy convert to the idea of making a gospel music album.

"I'm really a lapsed Catholic at best, [I have] very non-descript religious practices, if any at all," says Griffin.

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Sacred Music Roundup // Christianity Today's Best New Releases in Sacred Music

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Jane Holstein

"Joyful music leads us sunward in the triumph song of life!"

Penned by Henry Van Dyke, a hundred years ago, and paired with the tune from the final movement of Beethoven's "Ninth," this one phrase sums up the power of music. Whether it is instrumental or choral, classical or modern, music from within the walls of a Gothic cathedral or the walls of a recording studio, enjoyment of sacred music continues to thrive.

In this debut of a new quarterly review of the best in new sacred music, we've chosen from a variety of writers, performers, and styles from albums released in the first half of 2010.

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