Healing and Worship
The season of Lent is a good time to be intentional about incorporating prayers for healing into worship and to offer a special service of prayers for healing and restoration.
March 10, 2011
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2 min read
Jubilee: Reflections
This was a handout at one of two plenary sampler sessions that introduced several of the leaders at the Calvin Symposium on Worship and the Arts on Friday, January 14, 2000.
February 24, 2011
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6 min read
Coop's Column - Risen Indeed
"On the third day he arose again from the dead." Simple words often capture life's most profound and important truths the best. How better, therefore, for Christians to make their most astonishing declaration about Jesus Christ than by this direct, unadorned, and so forthrightly clear confession?
February 11, 2011
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3 min read
How Communion Trains Us in God’s Hospitality
The more that you experience God’s grace through the sacraments and in ordinary life, the more attention you’ll pay to who’s not at the Lord’s Table.
February 7, 2011
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6 min read
Hospitality as Paying Attention
Randy Smit sees all of life as a gift and the Lord’s Table as the “quintessential place for experiencing the hospitality of Christ. And so who’s at the table becomes pretty significant.” He suggests focusing less on “fencing the table,” more on opening it to children or others who may be left out.
February 7, 2011
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2 min read
Coop's Column - So Marred, So Beautiful
Their suffering Savior’s immense love for them, far beyond their mind’s feeble ability to grasp or comprehend, now prompts Christians to worship him
January 14, 2011
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3 min read
Worship in Terrible Times
This article tells how Blacksburg churches, who had been working together to make ecumenical connections with the help of a Worship Renewal Grant, were able to respond to tragedy as a community.
December 10, 2010
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1 min read
Worship Leading as a Ministry of Reconciliation
When Isaac Wardell interviewed for the job of director of worship arts at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, he learned how often worship changes hurt, confuse, or offend people.
December 6, 2010
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2 min read
Dealing with Fear in Church Life
How can we worship so that God’s perfect love overcomes all we’re afraid of?
December 6, 2010
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5 min read
Greg Scheer on Working with Worship Committees
"People fear the unknown above all. You lie awake worrying about what might happen," says Greg Scheer, minister of worship at Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Worship changes often make people fear they'll lose power, feel discomfort, or watch meaningful traditions erode.
December 6, 2010
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1 min read
How to Develop a Requiem Choir: A Congregational Ministry for Funerals
In the midst of life, we are in death.” But fewer and fewer of us share in the sad, sometimes openly commercial rituals that surround our final passage in this culture—more and more grieving family and close friends mourn by themselves.
November 19, 2010
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1 min read
Pastoral Undertaking: A Case for Prearranging Funerals
At one of our church member's funeral, we gathered in Christ’s name to proclaim his resurrection as well as hers. Yet something seemed to be missing from this service of worship. This woman had dialogued at length with her own death, and we had heard only part of the conversation.
November 19, 2010
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1 min read
