Guidelines
How might a congregational team go about conceiving of a suitable project, developing a plan for its implementation, and writing a successful proposal?
We are relying on applicants to be creative and thoughtful as they consider what might be generative for themselves and the other congregations that would learn from their projects. At the same time, applicants should be sure to give close attention to the emphases and descriptions set forth in every section of this Web site. Please remember that projects need not be new endeavors, but can reflect work in which the congregation is already engaged.
We offer the following steps and questions as helps in this process. You can also view previous years’ projects online here.
In each congregation, the idea of applying to this program will probably originate with a specific leader or set of leaders. While a small group that is keenly interested will probably be crucial, it will also be important to involve a range of congregational leaders. Because successful projects will arise from the congregation’s specific character, setting, and mission and will be centered in the basic matters at the heart of the congregation's worship, clergy, musicians, educators, and lay leaders should participate in visioning and planning throughout the application process.
Projects may be, but need not be new endeavors. If your congregation is already doing something related to the theme, it would be quite appropriate to continue, expand, or enrich this work in ways that emphasize the theme and enhance your ministries in worship, music, and the arts.
Four concerns should focus your thinking as you conceive and develop a project:
- What are this congregation’s strengths in worship, music, and the arts?
- How is this congregation already related to, and how does it serve, neighbors beyond its walls? How might the congregation’s relationships and capacity to serve be deepened, especially in ways that include worship, music, and the arts?
- What elements of this theme resonate with the congregation’s present life together or speak to its hopes for the future? Why are the leaders and members of this congregation interested in reaching out with the gospel, and why is the proposed project a promising and authentic way of doing so?
- What other congregations might become ecumenical partners in this venture?
We hope that the process of application will encourage good conversations about all of these questions. A good proposal should consider each of them in one way or another, in order to put your project in context. However, your proposal should emphasize your project—the specific and focused set of activities you would like to develop. Your proposal should describe what your project would do, explain how it is related to the theme and to the overall goals of the ISM Congregations Project, and show how it is grounded in your own congregation’s character, setting, and mission.
To stir imagination, we have come up with a few questions that might point in this more focused direction. These are not project ideas but areas of concern that may prompt reflection about this year’s theme in relation to what you already do or what you might consider doing in your own setting:
- What does your congregation have to negotiate, learn, or teach as it seeks to share the gospel in the context of its neighborhood, city, or region, especially regarding its way of engaging in worship, music, and the arts?
- What opportunities and challenges do specific elements of 21st-century culture set before your congregation’s efforts to reach out to others? (Examples: technology, religious pluralism, popular culture, generational divisions, class and economic divisions)
- How might your congregation attend to the religious/spiritual experience and journeys of folks outside the church in ways that enrich both your own worship and your capacity to welcome others?
- What has drawn new worshipers to your congregation over the generations and in recent years? Might your history and experience suggest forms of outreach that you might embrace more deliberately?
- Considering your location and its needs, whom do you feel especially called to welcome?
- What kind of arts-related outreach do you/could you have in your parish that exists outside the context of worship and how does this extend the mission of your parish to the community?
Download a PDF of the guidelines here.
Yale
Institute of Sacred Music
PO Box 208273, New Haven CT, 06520
409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Tel: 203-432-3187 Fax: 203-432-5296
© 2010. Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Updated July 23, 2011