Pastors and church musicians: friends, foes, or...

The Alban Institute's Weekly Roundtable blog takes on the vital question of the relationship between pastor and church musician:

Friend, Foe, or Fiasco
From The Alban Institute

. . . There seems to be a direct correlation between the worship life of a community and the relationship between the pastor and the church musician. When this partnership suffers, congregational worship suffers. When the partnership is flourishing, the way is clear for us to foster dynamic worship. We believe that church musicians and pastors need to take an honest look at their respective theological perspectives, approaches to worship, and gifts in worship leadership by asking the following questions: How do we complement one another in worship leadership? What areas are strong, and what areas need a bit of tweaking in our individual and collegial worship leadership? How do we each understand the aim of worship and the role of music in worship? If we come from different theological or liturgical perspectives, in what areas can we find common ground?
Posted on July 26, 2010 2:30 PM | |
Comments (4)

The collaboration between priest and musician works best where both are working to understand the spiritual practice in liturgical, congregational singing. Musicians tend to value quality music and clergy tend to lean either toward 'liturgically correct' or a market-driven sense of 'what the people want.'. Trying to pay attention to how music makes community and what singing together does in Christian formation creates a ground for real conversation and collaboration in which quality, liturgical content, and what is accessible and appealing to congregation are allfactors to consider, but none are decisive or non-negotiable. It's what All Saints Company addresses in our Music that Makes Community workshops. http://www.allsaintscompany.org/projects/view/a_new_project/

Posted by Donald Schell [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 26, 2010 3:05 PM

My parish's organist is really wonderful. We don't always agree, but we both always want worship to be great. We've taught each-other a great deal. I don't know what works everywhere, but for us it helps that we sit down and plan every service together from scratch, thinking about themes and continuity before ever putting pen to paper.

Posted by Matthew Buterbaugh+ [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 27, 2010 4:00 PM

I hate to say it, but they're dumbing the music down. Monophony improvised and/or learned on the spot does not hold a candle to the music we have in the hymnal -- a rich trove of great stuff produced by the greatest composers of the last few centuries. Most Christian denominations have dumbed down the music -- TEC has not. Our music is accessible enough -- come on, it is not difficult to learn to sing the top line of a hymn! Sorry, but the day the church throws out Vaughan Williams, Stanford, and Bach is the day I check out.

[Dear Urbie4 - Welcome. Take note of our comment policy for your future comments. We require your name. - eds.]

Posted by Urbie4 [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 28, 2010 8:22 AM

Sorry about that! I'm John Kafalas. I used the "sign in via Facebook" link and thought that would append my real name.

[Apology due from our side. We thought when anyone signed in from Facebook we could see that. With yours we couldn't. Unsolved software issue. - ed.]

Posted by Urbie4 [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 28, 2010 10:04 AM

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