1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2024 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
In the 2023 Worship Symposium’s five main worship services we are looking at Colossians. In this session the five people preaching on Colossians will reflect together on how the situations facing the Colossian Christians long ago remain relevant today. Najla Kasab, Marshall E. Hatch Sr., Laura de Jong, Danny Román-Gloró, and Scott Hoezee will talk about what they observed in crafting their sermons for this year's symposium and on the larger opportunities all preachers have to bring forward Paul's words to address the many crises of our own time.
Join the twenty-minute University worship service and then gather with the Calvin University Worship Apprentices, who will reflect on their chapel planning process and share lessons learned about leading congregational singing.
What a gift to have in a single conversation leading experts on the rich history of Christian worship music in the continent of Africa as well as from African diaspora communities in the United States and England! What treasures and insights from this rich history should be more celebrated and cherished? What misunderstandings should be corrected? How can we learn from this rich history without misappropriating it? What signature examples of congregational song should we all learn more about and from? How can we all continue to learn more and explore more deeply connections across continents and Christian traditions?
Every Sunday, thousands of worshiping communities in the United States and all over the world rely completely or partially on contemporary praise and worship [CP&W] in corporate worship. How has CP&W evolved, what are the movement’s main trends, and how is it experienced around the world? How is CP&W shaping Christians’ understanding of God, themselves, and the world? Join us to learn from renowned scholars in the field.
This panel will discuss ongoing research on the practice of lamentation in the Black church tradition as a formative pedagogical tool for both theological education and the broader community. Special attention will be given to the value of embodied learning with a cohort of seminarians, religious practitioners, scholars, and faith leaders who have visited sites where massacres and atrocities against Black life have occurred.
The psalms were written to be sung. But if your church favors guitar and band-led modern worship, how do you sing the psalms? Songwriter Wendell Kimbrough answers this question through the use of short antiphonal psalm refrains that are singable and memorable for his congregation and provide a musical entry point into a psalm. They have become a beloved staple in his home congregation’s worship. In this workshop, Wendell will share some favorite psalm refrains, discuss the mechanics of their use, and respond to questions from attendees. The goal is for all attendees to go home with a plan for regularly incorporating musical psalms into their worship services.
What makes a song singable? Meet with Paul Ryan and Wendell Kimbrough as they discuss the morning worship service held in the chapel [10:30–10:50 a.m.] and the qualities of congregational song that help the church join its voices as one.
This session is for organists, aspiring organists, the curious, and the inquisitive. No one person has as many sounds at their disposal [or as many keys and buttons!] as an organist. Let's discover new sounds together in this session by listening to new organ music for worship, learning ways to incorporate the organ into your services [even if you don't have a regular organist], and exploring some of the many tonal possibilities the organ has to offer.
This panel discussion will explore misunderstood or neglected scriptural and theological themes related to Christian formation.
What have we been learning about ministry through the pandemic? What benefits, strengths, virtues, and gifts have surprised us? Our panelists for this session are listeners and learners—people listening for what local ministry leaders are saying and for what is going on under the surface, even things not explicitly spoken. We'll learn from their listening and then receive some tips about how all of us can be more attentive in our listening practices.
How can science help us understand what happens when Christians sing together in a common physical space? What are the neural and relational benefits of singing? This session will explore how the Holy Spirit works through what Christians in previous centuries have called “the second book of God”: nature, or the gifts of the physical world.
This workshop is designed for interested lay folks, ministry leaders, and pastors for the sake of exploring the expansive intellectual/spiritual tradition of scripture. The biblical thought-world can hold its own with the ancient Greeks and modern scientific enterprise alike, yet we often don’t understand how scripture’s “thinking” can guide us through the thorniest issues in our culture. This workshop will help participants learn to think alongside the biblical authors by accessing the coherent systems of ideas across the Old and New testaments that not only permeate our own cultural and intellectual traditions, but offer a sophisticated critique of our society.
