Be a Part of Our Musical Worship Leadership
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a great theologian, was born in Copenhagen in the early nineteenth century. He graduated from the University of Copenhagen and then spent two years in Germany before he returned to Copenhagen, where he lived the rest of his life. Although his writings covered many areas of the Christian faith, he was particularly outspoken on the subject of worship.
He was quite critical of many churches whose worship had become "user friendly." He developed the idea that Christian worship was a drama. He had come to the conviction that many churches also believed that, but that there was an inappropriate redefining of what that meant. What he observed was that in the drama, God was to be the prompter, the liturgical leaders (musicians, readers of the scriptures, preachers and celebrants) had become the actors in the drama and the congregation had become the audience in the drama. An elitist class of leaders had implicitly modeled that they were better equipped to be the performers in this drama and that it was best if those in the congregation just watched as onlookers. This understanding of worship is still maintained and taught in many churches in America today.
Kierkegaard taught that this understanding of our worship of drama was totally wrong. People were taking on the wrong rolls. The liturgical leaders (musicians, readers of the scriptures, preachers and celebrants) were to be the prompters in worship. All of us, the congregation as well as the liturgical leaders are the actors in the drama of worship and God alone is the audience for the drama.
It is truly exciting to be a part of our liturgical leadership of our drama of worship. This year we hope to advance our musical worship breadth to include new types of prompting in our worship. We are blessed with the support of our new Organ/Choral Scholar. We continue to have growth in the size of our choir. We would like to identify those of you in the parish that would like to explore sharing your musical gifts with the entire church. If you have an interest in participating with the choir, singing solos, playing a keyboard instrument, playing hand bells or other musical instruments, please contact our organist and director of music, Rev. Larry D. Ellis. (email - larry.ellis@softwright.com or telephone xxx-xxx-xxxx) We would like to give you every opportunity to lead us in corporate worship by being a part of our musical leadership.