WorshipHelps

Victoria Weinstein, a Unitarian Universalist minister [obviously outside of the bounds of evangelicalism] who goes by the handle PeaceBang, has launched a fashion blog to encourage the "defrumpification of the American clergy." And in a recent Boston Globe story, Weinstein says that even though fashion isn't the greatest concern for clergy, it still matters.

I read the article and I would like to put a spin on this.

Though Weinstein's advice is decent, especially to her target group of women ministers, her comments have implications. And I'm sure Weinstein's aim is not to cause any overt controversy, but it raises some interesting questions...one I've heard on more than one occasion.

"Anyone who is in a position of leadership has to consider what image they're projecting...they will not be willing to hear us in the same way if we look like we walked out of 1972."Continue reading...

As we've been living in the midst of house renovations, I've been thinking about congregational imagination. A congregation's imagination is reflected in many ways: how it shapes and reshapes its worship space, how it shapes its re-telling of biblical stories and its own congregational stories, the kinds of people who are welcomed and who feel at home, and the kinds of cultic practices it considers normative.

I had a pretty clear sense of the congregational imagination of the church in which I served as music director for over twenty years. The congregation had a sense of the dramatic, and this was reflected in its development of the worship space. It loved to take unusual angles in its retelling of biblical stories; it was not unusual to have worship feature a potter's wheel in the centre of the sanctuary and liturgical dance, though not frequent, was welcomed as part of normal (rather than “special” or “different”) worship.

I am now in a new congregation, and am still in the process of learning the scope of its imagination.

The congregation's imagination cannot, of course, be completely separated from that of its leadership. There is a kind of conversation that begins early in a pastor's (or other leader's) tenure, as congregation and pastor listen to one another, and develop what you might call an “image bank”, that treasure house of story, metaphor, symbol, visions and images with which it expresses its communal identity.Continue reading...

Many Christian traditions suffer from a lack of musical resources on the issue of justice.  Here is one based on Micah 6:8 you might try.  It is written in the style of a Taize chant.  In other words, it is a simple line of scripture set to a repeatable refrain.  It can be used in worship on its own as a canticle (scripture set to music), sung as a refrain to prayer petitions, or interspersed with scripture readings.

Click here for the PDF.  Click here for the MP3.

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This Taize type chant was originally composed for use by the worshipping community of Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California.  Micah 6:8 is the theme verse for the 2006-7 for seminary chapel program.  This song can be used without further permission if the following line of credit is provided:Continue reading...