What does music ministry look like – sound like – right now? Whatever your answer, it’s certainly different from what it would have been earlier this year. On this episode, Brian Hehn and I discuss leaning into our identities as music ministers, and why that focus is an important aspect of our work as church …
Music Ministry with Brian Hehn, on Music and the Church with Sarah Bereza Ep. 50 Read More »
Most of us church leaders are walking up a steep learning curve right now. Especially in smaller churches, we need technical and musical resources as we move our services and communities online. We also need grace for ourselves and for others as we learn, fail, succeed, and grow. I hope these resources are helpful for …
This post includes 57 recorded accompaniments that may be freely used in online services. Each audio file has an introduction to the hymn and several stanzas. If you’re in a small church without an easy way to record hymn accompaniments, I hope they will help support your congregation’s online worship. The hymn accompaniments can be …
57 Public Domain Hymn Accompaniments for Free Use (Updated 1/28/2021) Read More »
What a strange time we are living in. I think most or all of us have never considered canceling in-person worship even once for sickness, much less for weeks. As we consider how to help our congregations worship in the coming weeks, I’ve made a list of hymns for fearful times – hymns of comfort, …
What are your favorite hymnals? Crawford Wiley and I talk about our top five favorites. Since none are hymnals that our congregations sing from, we use them in our service planning and sometimes devotionally.
How can singing foster our relationships with strangers? And how can singing not just foster relationships, but be a powerful means of hospitality? Dr. Helen Phelan draws on her ethnographic work with a Congolese-Irish choir to show the potential of “sonic hospitality” through singing together.
We are blessed with a wealth of hymns that are suitable for funerals and memorial services. As you select music for your loved one’s funeral – or as you help a family choose music for a service – it can be helpful to see a list of hymns to select from. This post gathers together …
What language does God speak, and how can the metaphor of language help us better understand our relationship to God? Dr. Jean Kidula, Professor of Music at the University of Georgia, shows how thinking about dialect expands our ways of thinking about the music we use to worship God.
In this conversation with Dr. John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, we talk about making change in our churches in a week-by-week process, the importance of resources to validate aspects of ministry that aren’t currently supported, and – the big one – how important teachability and curiosity is to leadership.
Learn about: the Old Hispanic Chant, methods for analyzing music we can’t hear, and what we can learn from medieval processions. Here’s the Big Why: “I think these artifacts that we have – these musical and liturgical artifacts – are as valuable as a Gothic cathedral. And in a way even more valuable, because a …
Old Hispanic Chant with Emma Hornby, on Music and the Church Ep. 42 Read More »