Thursday May 15th 2008, 8:51 am
Filed under: Brainwaves
Well, after an amazing Two Week Intensive Certificate Course and some rest, we have some evaluations coming back in from the 10 worship leaders/artists who joined the Institute family. Canada, the US, Australia and the UK were represented in this amazing 12 days sojourn.
I am stunned by how each of the Two Week Intensives is so very unique, as it is built around the learning community that has formed for that brief time. I feel like a part of a new fellowship of companions each time, and my only heartbreak (for fixing later, I note) is that I’m not able to bring everyone who has participated in Institute events together at one time! A reunion is in order.
We pray that God would bring the right people, for the right mix, for each, and that it would be its own unique “fellowship of the ring” (to use a Tolkien metaphor) for a season of discovery.
I put in a few of this group’s quotes here, as it is both encouraging to me to continue on in this dream of the Institute for the creative leaders of our generation, and important to me to present these wordes for your encouragement.
For those that wonder in the emerging Church world, there is hope and joy ahead for the creative community of the 21st century Church. There are too many GreatHearts living and breathing among the worship leaders of this generation for us to fail in this key role in the Church and in culture. I meet them every program. This one is no exception.
QUOTES FROM THE TWO WEEK INTENSIVE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM 08
“This intensive came at a perfect time for me. I was reminded of the reasons I began leading worship and was encouraged to follow what God has placed in my heart. Learning concepts about the hugeness of God’s story and experiencing such a rich time with such wonderful people is a blessing I will never forget.”
“It’s been a great ride to look back thousands of years and see how men and women have struggled in their faith and knowledge of God; yet many have found something worth living and dying for. I’m beginning to understand the reasons behind much of the stuff I believe, some good, some bad, and some strangely ugly. I’m coming to a place of tension-filled peace that I believe can both listen and respond to the church and culture.”
“It reinforced the idea of God not seeing things as simply sacred or secular - which opens up a lot of stuff (for worship leaders especially)!”
“The most exciting things I’ve learned (these two weeks) came me from listening to everyone’s ideas and responses to the material we’ve covered.”
“This intensive was an exciting time of learning and fellowship. I enjoyed the diversity of cultural world views, theology, and history all brought together to enrich our lives as worshipers and leaders.”
“The story that we find ourselves in is huge – I feel free to go and tell it in a thousand ways in confidence. I’m tooled up and ready to continue the next part of the journey. It’s also been hugely positive: searching for treasure on my knees.”
“We bear the image of a sovereign God who loves us.”
“This season of study was packed full of exciting ideas, theology, expressions of worship, ancient and current literature that has filled me with confidence in how I can lead worship.”
“The beauty and power of liturgy was so evident. Lexio Divina and Ignatian Prayer will now become an integral part of my time with God.”
A quote about your experience that we can use to advertise the Institute:
“This two-week Intensive is an experience like no other. It is a beautiful program bursting with creativity, new friendships yet family, rooted in sound, passionate theology.”
“I believe this course provided some essential studies on some essential questions for essential formation of creative leaders. Did I mention ‘essential’?”
“This experience has invited me back to the innocent love a child has for his father and creation. I feel alive in a way that music hasn’t fully been able to bring, rather the aliveness is stirring melodies in my soul.”
“The Institute is a strategic, formational experience that I would highly encourage for anyone connected to creative leadership in the church.”
“What a great environment for growth! Lecturers who listen and invite active discussion as they teach seem to make things “stick” long enough to have relevance in my life.”
“The most enriching two weeks of my journey to date.”
“Coming to the Intensive was like being a sponge that soaks up all the water until it can’t hold anymore and when it is picked up it pours out on anyone who will take it.”
“I came expecting nothing and walked away with a deeper love and experience of God.”
“I am so thankful to have both learned and experienced the stretching of my understanding and knowledge of the context we are in, as well as a demonstration of God’s goodness in times of community, reflection, and inspiration.”
“We learned some great perspectives on how to approach key issues.”
“I learned enough things to make me want more to know more – to experience more.”
“The Institute Intensive has given me a great thirst for God and his people.”
“Whenever I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I look to the Institute, and I have hope.” (ed. note: “Ha.”)
And my personal favorite:
“This whole experience was a huge gift that God just placed in my arms. It has been a “marking point” in my life that I will always refer to. I stepped into the waters that are compelling me to get into my wee boat, push away from shore and take the journey of a lifetime. I have a better understanding of what I believe, how God sees me, a changing worldview, an expanding God-view, an appreciation of creational theology, a reverence for the “imagebearer” in myself and others. It’s been so rich.”
CHEERS TO A RICH INTENSIVE, AND TO A GROWING COMMUNITY OF FORMATIONAL CREATIVE LEADERS IN THE CONTEMPORARY AND EMERGING CHURCH!
Alright, this is way too fun. Hang drums, the precious dulcimer, and now this. Maybe the future of music is found in instruments that evoke a sense of mystery when played - or when simply looked at!
My blog friends and emerging worship conversationalists, I’m just thrilled, over the moon, tickled deep red about this. So many of you have asked, now, we’ve done it.
Cheers to the formation of the worship and creative community for the now of our generation, and toward the centuries ahead. Hope you can make it.
PRESS RELEASE: THE INSTITUTE GOES ONLINE THIS SUMMER 2008!
Sign Up today for our inaugural Summer 2008 course in July! First 10 applicants receive a special launch gift - a copy of the new St. Stephen’s Book Prayer Book from our St. Stephen community.
Song As Sacred Action: Learning From Native Americans
Dan Wilt
In a small, Native American community center in eastern Maine, a group of friends gathered from towns on both sides of the Canadian/US border. A potluck and music-sharing evening had been arranged between the communities on the Pleasant Point reservation, and an air of joy and festivity filled the room. By the time I arrived with my children, the music had started and we were soon serenaded with a guitar and fiddle weaving together reels and jigs – engaging the whole, ethnically-mixed group in contagious humming and irrepressible foot-tapping.
Songs And Sacred Acts
Our hosts were from the Passamaquoddy tribe (part of the Wabanaki confederacy, meaning “people of the dawn”), and they warmly welcomed us to the gathering. After a few more songs, a group of young men began to gather in a sacred drum circle for the next expression of the night. They seemed to be both chatting and offering prayers as they prepared themselves to play, enrobing their hands and large drum in smoke from a smudge pot, while they breathed in the strong vapors.
Video cameras and audio recorders were poised, ready to capture the thundering beauty of the energetic native sounds we had come to know and appreciate. Then, a young man from the circle stood, and walked over to the microphone. His eyes and face revealed the striking characteristics of an ethnic heritage that is said to reach 600+ generations into the story of this area.
“The songs we will do are sacred songs of our people,” he proudly said. “For that reason, we ask that there be no video-taping or recording of what we are about to do.” My immediate response was to sigh with sadness. For anyone who has ever been stirred by the communal, impassioned performance of a native drum circle, capturing it in some form of media for others to behold is a rare opportunity.
I turned off my recorder, honored his request, and lingered in the raw celebration of tribal history and spirituality embodied in their intricate melodies and rhythms.
Music As A Shared Experience
The next day, I spoke with a good friend who had organized the non-native contingency of musicians. He had spoken to one of the drum circle leaders, and discovered a fascinating truth about their view of the sacred music they played, and why we were asked to turn off our recorders.
In the eyes of the tribe, it seems, their sacred music is not a commodity to be somehow captured and passed around for enjoyment or spectating after the performance. The very essence of the music arises from those participating in the live, sacred moment. The sacredness of the music is intimately tied to the shared, live experience of praying its themes together, and both the music and the focus of the music may be dishonored when we seek to document the event for a second-hand listener.
The tribal “pow-wow songs” (i.e. the ones we were allowed to record) were historically written to make money for the tribe – by playing them for the white man. Pow-wow songs were created, in effect, to be a loophole in the native vision of music. They are a necessary accommodation, enabling the tribe to survive in a system ordered against them.
In ceremonial music, the music is sacred because of its focus, and our shared experience. In fact, the music is the shared experience for the players and those gathered – our fellowship is an essential instrument in the offering.
For the Passamaquoddy, the playing of the music, and the community praying with it, creates a sacred space not meant for mass consumption. In ceremony, the beating of prayers to the sky becomes more important than the actual musicality of the playing. In summary, the music is not the center point in the experience, but rather the playing of that music. In many ways, Passamaquoddy sacred music is all about the moment of encounter, and the community’s participation in that moment, together.
The High Goal Of Communal Worship
While we may not fully embrace this view of intentionally sacred voicings of music, there is an insight here to be gleaned from our native brothers and sisters. In today’s contemporary Christian music experience, the gift of documenting music in media is that it multiplies a powerful message, and to some degree extends to us the experience embodied by the recording. However, our view of worship, employing music that is explicitly directed toward interacting with God should possibly undergo some reflective scrutiny.
According to this native view of sacred music, the fact that this past Sunday our church connected with God, through shared songs, may have been the highest goal to which our gathering could attain. As the worship leader, I am deeply aware that our band sounded great in some moments, and similar to a train wreck in others. And yet, without veiled spiritualized attempts to justify a flawed performance, the fact that we shared a common voice through those songs may be a higher goal to be celebrated than the pristine execution of the music (have you ever been to a music execution before? I sure have; I’ve even led the proceedings!)
Connected In The Music Of Worship
The next time you gather with a body of believers to sing the songs of faith, consider this view of sacred music brought to us by our native brothers and sisters. The music that you jointly make with the group gathered is the gift itself, offered exuberantly to God, in that moment. See yourself as an integral part of this sacred experience, whether you sing on the stage or from your seat, and share the vitality of the music with those playing and singing near you.
We may not want to skip recordings all together, but if we are attentive to the living moments of worship we share with others in our churches, we may find ourselves more present to our community’s shared moment of worship ¬– and more fully engaged with the One we adore.
I’m now going unconscious. Will update in a few days. In the meantime. listen to the mp3 at the post below, again, 1/2 way through the poem, with the dulcimer in the background, it begins.
Gifted writer, artist and communicator Joel Mason (SSU) offers his poem on the voyage of St. Brendan, and Garrett Viggers backs him up on hammered dulcimer.
It starts about halfway through the mp3. It’s breathtaking - a beautiful spontaneous work of art between the two of them. The poem and the journey it represents is a reflection of our postmodern wandering. St. Brendan’s Voyage by Joel Mason, Music by Garrett Viggers
Our concert and FaceToFace event went off without a hitch, and was a great success.
Here’s a link to a Facebook video Holli’s sister shot at the concert (we were opening for a few minutes at the start): Video
Many musicians and worship leaders were served during the day, and the concert in the Gothic Arches was just a blast. More later, as the Intensive is still on through this week.
I’ll get some of our current participants commenting on the experience in a post. Then, yesterday, hammered dulcimer artist and Intensive participant Garrett Viggers led worship - a rich a beautiful time surrounding ideas from St. Brendan’s journey by Joel Mason.
We’d still appreciate your prayers - more earth-shattering discussions, worship and creativity going on this week.
Our first week in the Intensive is going incredibly well. The grounds here are beautiful, and our learning community is going deep into so many aspects of creational theology, spiritual formation, worldview and worship. Fully alive, boy, fully alive.
David Ruis brings so much to the table as we explore the bigger story of creativity, justice, and a story that’s big enough for all human beings to live in, including Christians. There are moments I think that we all just want to stop, be silent for a time in the presence of God and the richness of ideas, and let it soak in. Today, our sessions are on Ignatian prayer, Celtic Spirituality, Creativity and Cultural Interface (Ruis) and tonight we party around the Planet Earth DVDs (creational theology).
I’ll try to keep you posted, but it’s a time thick with glory, authenticity and activity. The most amazing sounds arise from our group worshipping in songs together - the harmonies are so rich, so cool and the textures of hammered dulcimers, guitars and percussion fill the room.
What a privilege to do this. Thanks for praying for us as we go. Past, present and future - so much in so little time.
Well, we’re full swing into our Two Week Intensive Certificate course at the Institute, and the group is an amazing collection of worship and creative leaders hailing from all over North America. Creative streams are already beginning to flow, and music fills the air in the liminal space of the Dominion Hill Centre.
After sharing our stories yesterday and continuing to recoup from jetlags, we enter into the festivities. Spiritual Director Lorna Jones, Historian Gregg Finley, David Ruis and myself will lead through the day.
The worlds of Ignatius, the Celts and essential worship theology (Wright and others) begin to open up to us, and we’ll begin the day with an ancient form of worship, Lectio Divina, and some contemporary worship.
If you would take the time to pray for us, just for a minute as you read this post, we’d be so grateful. Pray that a vanguard of worship artisans would rise in a living way in our midst, reaching into the past, engaging the present, and breathing in and on the future.
I seem to be in a bit of an “artist” series right now, so I’ll go with the flow.
I was introduced to this artist, Blair Anderson, by good friend and sacred networker Heidi Turner. What I may appreciate about Blair the most is her personal story, part of which unveils her struggle to call herself an artist even after 40 years.
Given the recovery in which the Church finds herself, I’m not surprised. The next 50 years of the Church, in my view, will be an exciting season of watching artists who follow Jesus find their honed, singular and highly skilled voice.
Let Blair’s story be a declaration to you if needed - that the artist must continually come forward, no matter the voices within that seek to quench the call.
Again, in the midst a world that bases human value on so many insubstantial measurements, Derek Paravicini gives voice to the glory of God in the human image.
Especially watch the 1 in a Million clip - a gift. When I think of how many today diminish the spiritual and transcendent in such anomalies of hard-wiring, I’m amazed at the amount of faith they must exercise.
By the way, this man is blind, and by tests thinks in the manner of a three-year old.
Thank you God for for Derek as a living ensign to things beyond - thank you Derek’s parents for giving him the chance to live.
I was speaking in the Canada West School Of Worship (what a great group this year), which Norm leads, and spending some time with the worship community. It’s been a rich time, and we fly back tonight.
Norm and the artists here spend much of their time playing gigs in the city and investing themselves deeply into the artistic community of Kelowna. They embody many of the central ideas and reformations I talk about in The Worship Artisan piece. The language of cultural interface and creational theology marked much of our time.
Pray for them and their work, and our growing friendship. There is a wonderful synergy in what we do at the Institute, and what they do here.
