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Aug 25, 2011

St. Mark's, Houston, to Co-Host Music that Makes Community

Music that Makes Community is a three-day conference on the use of paperless music, intended for music directors, organists, clergy, and lay leaders of churches. This session of the conference will be held on October 6-8, 2011 at Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas and co-hosted by St. Mark's, Houston.

 

Participants who have attended a previous Music that Makes Community conference will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of this repertoire and its use in liturgy, while first-time participants will focus on developing their skills and learning more about the theological rationale for this music. Making use of such elements as repetition, round, and call-and-response, paperless music serves to bring together people with a wide variety of musical skills. Any number of people, and in almost any setting can sing this repertoire. A major focus will be how to use this music alongside existing denominational traditions of liturgy and music; the conference presenters represent a wide range of denominations: Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, and UCC. 

 

Small groups sessions, facilitated by the presenters, foster the development of essential skills and promote discussion of participants’ individual ministerial contexts and goals for learning. The common objective of the conference as a whole is to enable participants to form community and empower congregations through their work as musical leaders. We will also spend time discussing the role of this type of music in the church and its potential to effect congregational transformation.

 

The conference will draw together facilitators and leaders from around the country to explore paperless music in an environment of mutual learning. Lunch (included in the registration fee) will be provided each day.

 

Presenters

Donald Schell 
Emily Scott 
Paul Vasile 
Scott Weidler

 

Click here to register.

 

 

All Saints Company was founded in 1974 by Rick Fabian and Donald Schell as a resource to the Episcopal Church and other churches, for the renewal of church life through the liturgy. 

 

From their founding days at the chaplaincy at Yale University they began experimenting with movement, text, and space. They drew from the breadth of Christian tradition, always-preferring times and places where the church’s liturgy was “popular” --where it was easily accessible by the stranger and newcomer. They are convinced that liturgy is always meant to develop in a living community beyond the confines of rubrical correctness.

 

In 1978 they founded St. Gregory of Nyssa parish as a special mission of the Diocese of California.  The young congregation pioneered the Open Table in the Episcopal Church, inviting everyone to communion whether baptized or not, following Jesus’ teaching and example.  St. Gregory’s also began to explore the lay diaconate, congregational dance, unaccompanied singing as ways to involve the congregation in worship.

 

Over the past 30 years All Saints Company has worked with St. Gregory of Nyssa church to extend their learned principles of creating good liturgy and vibrant community to a worldwide audience though conferences, gatherings, publications.  In 2007 Rick and Donald transitioned out of leadership of St. Gregory’s in order to devote themselves full-time to the All Saints Company mission of resourcing the church with new ways to think about liturgy and community.

 

If you would like to learn more about the work of ASC and how you can partner with us, please go to:

 

http://www.allsaintscompany.org/