May 12, 2011

Sing a New Song

I just got back from the post office where I sent off my grant application to the Lilly Foundation for my first sabbatical in 30 years of ministry. Whether we get the funding or not, we are pushing ahead with a shared renewal experience for me and the church in the first four months of the coming year.

It’s about music. For me, I get to explore guitar and drumming, visit Africa and Taize, France and hang out for a month with one of the Episcopal Church’s most gifted musicians, Dent Davidson. For the congregation, it will be an exploration of the hidden gifts for music in the community, an opportunity to explore new hymnody, and go deeper in our Taize practice that has become an important part of our worship life.

Ours is a fairly large, dynamic Episcopal Church. The primary worship service at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings represents the best of the new tradition of worship that is now firmly rooted in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal. Music for this service is provided by a traditional vested choir of 24 members led by Michael Cooley, an exceptional classically trained organist/choir director. Having served in Episcopal churches over 50 years, he brings incredible gifts for the integration of liturgy and music in hymn and anthem selections and in the choice of musical settings for the sung portions of the liturgy. At age 74, sometime in the not-too-distant future, Michael will choose retirement. This time of experimentation and play will greatly inform our decision when the time comes to choose a new music director or team.

Our worship service presently offers 12 different musical settings or selections. When we start to expand the scope of music for these settings to include all the new hymnal supplements as well as world music it will change our common life. Introducing these changes in a broader context of renewal with a time of reflection following the sabbatical project will hopefully make the changes less threatening and possibly a lot of downright fun.

I wonder what the state of music is today throughout the church in this country and around the world? I will hopefully have a much better idea when I return and I will rejoin a congregation that will have truly pushed its boundaries in a time of shared renewal.