58.2 Collaboration
Introduction
Collaboration: what a loaded word. In my experience, this term gets tossed around a lot in the practice of ministry and in artistic circles, but what do we mean by it?
A Worship Triad: Liturgist, Holy Spirit, Preacher
From 1995 to 2003, I was the pastor of a United Methodist church in Brooklyn, New York. The congregation consisted mainly of persons from many islands in the Caribbean, and they loved to worship, and especially to sing the songs of our Wesleyan traditions. They appreciated good liturgy and reveled in reading and studying Scripture.
Collaboration at Faith
Samuel Springer and Cat Goodrich Cat Goodrich is pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church of Baltimore City, where she lives, bikes, bakes, and runs with her family (husband Dary and two girls, Maddie and Gillian; their dog Cocoa; and chickens Lola, Crystal, and Maple). ...
Theologia Prima: A Conversation with Jonathan Hehn
The core question, “What is the relationship between Christian education and worship?” is one that I’ve been thinking keenly about over the last few years. I think I’ll answer it first through storytelling.
All One in Christ Jesus
Neema African Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church of Berthoud are only an hour’s drive away from each other in Colorado, but our neighborhoods and congregations may as well be worlds apart.
Singing the Faith in Rural Kansas
“Rural is not less than.” This phrase is used by the Kansas Sampler Foundation, a nonprofit that exists to elevate and support rural Kansas communities. I emphasize this idea, that rural is not less than, as I engage with the topic of music in rural church settings.
The Work of Our Hands: Art and Worship, Ongoing Conversations
The Paulist Fathers, the Catholic religious order to which I belong, asked me in 2006 to go to New York City to start an outreach to artists. It could take any shape. I focused on young master of fine arts (the terminal degree in studio art) candidates attending every major art school in the New York City area.
A Tale of Two Christmases
The rehearsal helped prepare us to sing well throughout the Advent and Christmas season, and we had a great time singing for our neighbors and enjoying cookies and cocoa afterward. Though it was a long day, everything went off without a hitch . . . well, not exactly everything.
What Is the Role of Worship in Building Congregational Vitality?
Worship is an important part of church life. Like a filling station, where you go to fill your car’s tank when running low on gas, the church is the place where people go to replenish their empty tanks with the Holy Spirit. This process occurs through worship with other children of Almighty God.
Welcoming Children, Welcoming All
It was Sunday morning and Julia, age five, was awake before the rest of the family. Her Sunday church clothes were laid out on the dresser in her room, and she began to get dressed hoping that this Sunday would bring her a church like the one she had gone to before her family moved to this new community. Hope Community Church had felt like home.
Cooking with 엄마/eomma/mom
Cooking is a daily act full of deep connections and significance. Its significance is not as metaphor. Because all the spiritual meanings are inherent in the material parts and process of cooking; in cooking there is already a web of interdependence that connects us to land, people, and our ancestors.
On Liturgy: Collaboration
My job as a college chaplain involves quite a few public prayers at convocations, worship services, sporting events, and more. As I introduce myself to students or potential students, there is a running joke that I am the designated pray-er for our community. I am the one who shows up and has a word or two to offer for whatever we face as a community.
On Music: Navigating Style Preferences in Worship Planning
Many churches struggle to address the challenges of worship music in today’s diverse settings. As we move through 2024, congregations find themselves at a crossroads, grappling to reconcile the varying musical preferences across generations within their communities.
On Preaching: The Joy of Intentional Collaborative Preaching
Have you ever heard a technically beautiful sermon that impacted you more like a distant performance than an act of worship? An even better question: have you ever preached a sermon that felt that way to you? If I were in the room with you right now, I would have just raised my hand twice.
On the Arts: God Is Yet Creating a More Just World
Africans were brought to America in 1619 to be subjected to the cruel and evil institution of slavery. From 1619 to 1865, the brutal system of slavery was the law of the land, and then came years of Jim and Jane Crow. For African Americans, it was God and the church that fueled our imaginations of freedom.
Humor Us! Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit
A homiletics professor and a communications scholar sit down to write a book about preaching. This is either the beginning of a terrible joke to start a sermon on a Sunday morning or a fantastic collaboration between two vocations that both thrive on humor to convey a point quickly, meaningfully, and effectively.
