St. Louis, Missouri
2021
In response to the challenges of the pandemic, to use the Psalms to explore lament, grief, and resilience by engaging in liturgical arts that tell worshipers' stories, name challenges and losses, and cultivate healing and hope.
Provide a brief summary of the purpose and goal of your grant.
In response to the challenges of the pandemic, to use the Psalms to explore lament, grief, and resilience by engaging in liturgical arts that tell worshipers' stories, name challenges and losses, and cultivate healing and hope.
What questions have you asked about worship in the past year?
- At different stages in the pandemic, how does worship get cultivated to meet the needs of worshipers to experience God in resilience as joy as well as grief?
- As people are present in worship both digitally and physically, who composes the congregation and how do they interact with each other?
In what ways has your project engaged your congregation so that it impacts the worship life and habits of the congregation?
This project has engaged the Eden Seminary worshiping congregation both in the content of the arc of lament and in the emerging shape of the gathered community. The length and breadth of the COVID19 pandemic has necessitated a focus on the dynamism of lament as grief, resilience and as joy. It has reinforced the need to tell our stories of present and future through the stories of our past. During this time, Eden has embraced a blended (digital/physical) format of gathering for all classes, community events, contextual education and worship. This project has provided points in time for reflection on those modes of interaction in combination with liturgical resources created and curated for "such a time as this."
What criteria have you used to evaluate your plan to foster vital worship?
This project is an integral part of the programming and of the community of learning and faith that is the whole of Eden Seminary. It is evaluated through the lens of Eden's curriculum goals that include spiritual and vocational formation along with theological imagination and social transformation. Eden seeks to form leaders with capacities to practice anti-racism and its intersecting oppressions with vocational resilience and in ecumenical and interfaith collegiality. This plan is evaluated through participant surveys and through anecdotal feedback by alumni, students, participants in certificate programming and public events.
What issues have been your greatest challenges (or challenging opportunities)?
Scheduling changes and the need for flexibility in mode of gathering has been both challenge and content of the learnings from the project. Both the The October 2021 Festival of Psalms and the planned June 2022 Story Matters event moved between indoor and outdoor venues and with various configurations of in person and digital participation. Each change necessitates its distinct logistical arrangements, thus doubling and tripling the preparation work. Each change also enables the participation of different audiences, thus expanding the impact and access of the event. Staff transitions also have been challenging.. The broad institutional buy-in at the beginning of the grant visioning has enabled continued excitement and goals.
What would you like to share with other Project Directors?
The right people are in the room. These are not always the people we expect and it is not always the room we know. But vital worship happens in real places and time, wherever we are.
