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Decisions we make about how to shape and lead worship can do a lot to either welcome or inhibit the participation of those among us who struggle with mental health issues. This agenda-setting conversation seeks to identify key priorities for congregations in the years ahead as well as for organizations such as the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship who seek to serve and strengthen congregational life. It focuses especially on these central questions:
• What are the most pastorally constructive ways to speak about mental health in public prayer and preaching? What are problematic tendencies to avoid?
• How can we shape public worship services in ways that deepen the participation of those who struggle with mental health issues, even when mental health concerns are not explicitly named?
• How might the Holy Spirit use the public worship life of Christian congregations to minister to those with mental health concerns as well as to those who care for them?
• How might our answers to these questions vary if we focused on particular mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, substance addiction, or dementia?
• What resources have already been developed to strengthen Christian worship practices to respond to these challenges? What resources are most needed?
• What additional questions should we be asking? Who are key resources to help us address them?
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
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.
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.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
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.
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.
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.
