Public Worship and the Christian Life

Old Testament scholar Nancy deClaissé-Walford has spent her career studying the ordering of the Psalter. Most of the psalms, she says, are not tied to a particular situation, allowing us to sing and pray them honestly in our own contexts.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Pastor-scholar Andrew Wilkes shares how his worshiping community, Double Love Experience Church, prayed and sang the psalms during the troubling times of 2020. The psalms gave them language and support for praise and lament, and Wilkes asserts that lament is the evidence of faith because we are bringing our troubles to God.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Author and pastor-scholar David Taylor shares how he came to appreciate the psalms and how he encourages people to bring their full, unedited selves to God in prayer and experience a richer and more honest life of faith. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Jared Ortiz, professor at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, describes the Nicene Creed as a dramatic and powerful statement where every word is like a declaration of war, saying yes to the truth and no to many falsehoods. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Maria Eugenia Cornou and Mikie Roberts serve on a planning team for an October worship event in Egypt to mark the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and the ecumenical creed that emerged in the year 325 and remains firmly embedded in the worship practices of the church today.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Jane Williams, professor of theology at St. Mellitus College in London, England, sees the Nicene Creed, crafted 1700 years ago, as an extraordinary creative and exciting description of who God is and therefore what we trust in as Christians in God's world. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Nathan Longfield, pastor of Emmaus Reformed Church, a newer worshiping community, talks about their year-long project that explored embodiment and trauma-informed practices to more deeply engage in worship as a congregation and community.  Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Robby Kiley of Saint Pius X Parish in Granger, Indiana, shares how a grant project focused on welcome at the Mass for people across the spectrum of abilities extended beyond worship into a wider embrace of people in community and participation.  Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Lisa Allen offers an approach to worship planning that centers on the transformative power of holistic biblical worship.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Luke Powery encourages preachers and worshipers to embrace the space and place the church provides to ask questions as a faithful way of Christian discipleship and engaging with God.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Sarah Johnson and Andrew Wymer, two Free Church scholars in worship and liturgical studies, break new ground in “Worship and Power”, a book edited with other scholars in this tradition, and celebrate what these insights offer for ecumenical conversation and learning around liturgical authority.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Kevin Adams explores the beautiful gifts of framing words for worship—the “conversation of worship”—that are lifegiving and engaging.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Sarah Travis explores how Christian worship, through its rhythm of Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending, both unsettles us and equips us to do the work of conciliation and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Paul Metzger shares about the formative nature of the church calendar, which emphasizes that Christ in the fullness of time is what shapes us and how we inhabit time.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

For more than 25 years, Ron Man has been teaching on the biblical foundations of worship. He gathers up that learning in his book “Let Us Draw Near”, a testimony to the power of scripture to guide pastors and worshipers in our calling to be worshipers of God.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, artistic director Mark Doerries tells the emerging story of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, now ten years old, and the formative process and unifying vision the choir has built as they learn what it means to sing the sacred story of the church across time and space.  Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Christian educator Dr. La Verne Tolbert shares her hopes and desires for renewed connections between parents and the church in the formative work of raising children in the faith and including children in the worship life of the church.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, worship planner and musician Katie Ritsema-Roelofs shares about the importance of thoughtful and intentional ways the whole congregation can join in the formational work of intergenerational, corporate worship. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Pastor Lamar Hardwick reminds us that as many worshiping communities seek to become more diverse, celebrating and appreciating the beauty of all types of minds and bodies is an important theme in the life of the church.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Practical theologian Angela Williams Gorrell shares how experiencing life's challenges and sorrows is also an opportunity to share in its joy. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Practical theologian Ben Conner encourages and challenges congregations and pastors to reorient ministry with youth to fully include and amplifiy the witness of adolescents with developmental disabilities.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Practical theologian Sarah Frances Farmer offers four promising pathways for African American youth to strengthen capacity for hope infused with courage in the life of the church and community.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Richelle B. White shares her passion for drawing from the wisdom of the Bible along with Black history, Black culture, and Black music as rich, relevant, and necessary sources in nurturing in faith the lives of Black youth.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Patrick Reyes shares his story of growing up in borderlands where he cried out to survive, found guideposts in familia and community, remained present in suffering, and found pathways in and through community to a calling from God to life.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Montague Williams shares about the opportunities churches have to support and nurture young people of color as they navigate the joys and complexities of their lives in the 21st century.  Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Andy Root explores how narrative and joy spark the imagination and provide a framework to minister in Christ and for young people in deeply formative ways.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Amanda Drury talks about the integral role testimony plays in the worshiping community, especially as young people learn how to narrate their faith in a variety of spaces and ways and join the intergenerational faith community in long-term Christian living.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Almeda M. Wright shares about her research that explores the spiritual lives of African American youth and points to a complex picture of both the fragmentation and integration in their spiritual lives as they learn to balance experiences of suffering while persisting along pathways to life more abundantly in Christ.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Najla Kassab, ordained minister in the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and president of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, speaks with Maria Cornou about the fear and sadness that COVID-19 brought to the Lebanon and the healing power of God's grace through worship and new ways of seeing injustice and being community for Christians in the Middle East.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Palestinian Christian, professor, and pastor Munther Isaac shares with John Witvliet how the use of technology brought worship into homes and opened up new possibilities for services, Bible studies, and more during the during COVID-19 crisis for the worshiping community of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, pastor and church planter Arbin Pokharel talks with Maria Cornou about the vibrancy of the body of Christ in Nepal--land of Hinduism, birthplace of Buddha, and a caste system society--as they draw from the well of grace and practice their Christian faith so everyone can flourish.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, pastor-theologians Angelique and Marnus Havenga share with Maria Cornou about what they are learning about pastoring and serving the community as a whole in the Dutch Reformed Church, located in city-center of Stellenbosch, one of the most unequal towns in the country of South Africa. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Philip McKinley, co-founder of Discovery Gospel Choir, an intercultural ensemble that reflects the new-found cultural and ethnic diversity in Ireland, shares with Maria Cornou how the pandemic created new opportunities for unity and blessing among the people of Ireland and beyond in unimagined ways. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, Yvette Lau, worship leader and chief executive of Anabas Ministry for worship renewal based in Hong Kong, shares with Maria Cornou about leading worship and the wisdom and discerning spirit that is needed to shape worship and pastor God's people during these urgent times. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

In this episode, father and son Valdir Steuernagel and Marcell Silva Steuernagel share with Maria Cornou about the witness, embodiment, and community of the Lutheran church in south Brazil during the COVID-19 crisis. This conversation was recorded in the fall of 2020 as part of a global worship course Prof. Cornou taught at Calvin Theological Seminary.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Methodist School of Music aims to equip and edify worshipers and the church through music and the arts. Staff members Judith Laoyan-Mosomos and Justin Chan talk with Maria Cornou, an associate director at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, about their worshiping communities and practices and issues highlighted in COVID-19. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Mitri Raheb is a theologian, public figure, widely published author, and—for 30 years—senior pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. In this episode, Rev. Raheb talks with John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the worshiping community in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Fleming Rutledge talks about her 2015 book "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ," a life-long work which encourages preachers to proclaim the full gospel message: God is at work, helping us listen for Christ's living voice, enabling us to believe and hope in the midst of pain and suffering. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Juana Bordas talks about the power of leadership when each person, culture and community can contribute equally and show respect for all, and how leaders who embrace gratitude and forgiveness offer their communities hope for the future. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Célestin Musekura talks about the humanizing and justice-focused work of forgiveness, for individuals, communities and Christian worship. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Chaplain and youth advocate Khristi Lauren Adams talks about her new book "Parable of the Brown Girl" and how we all can encourage and empower the sacred lives of girls of color.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Catherine Gunsalus González shares about her book "Resources in the Ancient Church for Today's Worship" which celebrates the riches of going back in time to enrich the practices of worship today. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

President of Union Presbyterian Seminary and New Testament scholar Brian K. Blount talks about cultivating an apocalyptic perspective and what it means to preach the resurrection all year long.Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Pastor and songwriter Glenn Packiam shares about Christian hope in contemporary worship. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu

Carla Zastrow, teacher at Zeeland Christian School, talks about how 80 seventh graders and their teachers engaged the Biblical psalms during the COVID-19 crisis. Contact Us | worship.calvin.edu