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Worship should include music of our time that is destined to survive. The church should always be a center of creativity, and a forum for great artists. It's tragic that we have lost our reputation for being that. I urge you to reclaim the role of being an innovator, of being a leader of the arts within the church. Contemporary composers I like to feature at Fourth Presbyterian Church are Messiaen, Taverner, Arvo Pärt, Dan Locklair, Morton Lauridsen, Benjamin Britten, to name but a few. I have commissioned many new works for Fourth Presbyterian Church, both instrumental and choral. This is a wonderful way to engage composers to support your ministry and to give the community something that they can truly call their own. In 1997 I got a memo from John Buchanan asking me to start a jazz service at Fourth Presbyterian Church. My first reaction was one of fear. I didn't know how to do it, I didn't know why to do it, and I didn't know much about jazz. It took me several years, but I realized that he had the right idea. Now we have several services each year that incorporate jazz music for the entire service, or just a portion of it. Andy Tescon, a local jazz musician, has arranged nearly one hundred traditional hymns so that the congregation can sing with the wonderful jazz accompaniment provided by his eight piece band. He has also written an Ordinary of the Mass, so we have the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei in a jazz idiom throughout the communion service. He has also written a Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for Evensong. He has composed many anthems for his jazz band. With his arrangements of hymns and the communion setting, jazz becomes participatory for everyone, and I think that is the key to the successful use of jazz in worship. Worship should give voice to musical cultures other than our own, not for their own sake, but to support the lectionary and other themes in worship. This music, when done well and authentically, is enjoyed by everyone. At Fourth Presbyterian Church I have incorporated African-American spirituals, South African freedom songs, Caribbean music, Asian music, Native American music, Russian music with great success. Some of the resources I have found helpful are the Earth Songs Publishing company in Oregon and John Bell's music published through GIA which is from the Iona community. Marion Dolan, another Yale graduate, has edited a collection of Caribbean music with Augsburg Fortress. There are many other collections listed in the Hymn Society of America. Harold Best writes, "And in these later years of my profession, I find myself laughing and whole again, musically happier than ever, celebrating this vast expanse of sonic creativity, longing with all my heart to be a world musician as a living part of being a world Christian." I think worship leaders should seek out new forms of music that have spiritual and musical integrity. At Fourth Presbyterian Church we have initiated a Taizé service on the fourth Friday of every month. We have done six of them now, and we are already getting nearly one hundred people every service. It has filled a need in our congregation that our other worship services do not. One of the interesting things I have found as we have started the Taizé service is that it has been remarkably easy. It is almost as if the Holy Spirit has been pulling us through the whole process. Many things at Fourth Presbyterian Church have been difficult to launch, but not the Taizé service. |
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