We Believe: Faith, Community, and the Holy Act of Singing

Sponsored by Virginia & Mark Meyer

Fishing on the Other Side, new hymn texts by Lydia Pedersen. An eclectic collection of hymn texts written in response to specific occasions or pastoral needs.

Water Drops from the Living Well by Iteke Prins. A collection of hymn tunes set to texts by Hymn Society members, E. Downing, J. Reynolds, M. Bittner, D. Merrick, F. Crider, and J. Thornburg.

The first known published music by a Native American composer, "Indian Melodies" (1845) by Thomas Commuck is a collection of 120 hymn tunes. The presentation will include Commuck’s story as a Narragansett Indian, a Christian and a member of the Brothertown Indians, descendants of several New England native tribes who formed a new community. Ten of Commuck’s tunes will be introduced, some with appropriate historic texts, and some with contemporary words. We’ll discuss the style of the music, the role of Thomas Hastings as editor, and the potential of Commuck’s tunes for church use, and as inspiration for arrangers and composers.

This session will introduce attendees to my upcoming book and study, Songs of Resistance: The Bible’s Voices of Victory, Peace, and Protest. It pulls together my vocational experience as a biblical scholar, a minister, a musician, and an activist. Through the study of six different genres of biblical song, we will explore the role of musical and poetic passages throughout the Bible, and in particular how they connect with different aspects of lived human experience, both ancient and modern. From songs of worship and lament, to poems of love and proclamations of a more just social order, this study will listen intently to the voices of our ancestors in faith, and guide readers to consider how this legacy of music and community carries on today. The presentation will include some musical selections, as well as time for discussion and a Q&A period. The table of contents is as follows:

Introduction: The Power of Music in Cultures Ancient and Modern
Ch. 1: Singing the Stories of War: The Song of Deborah and the Song of the Sea
Ch. 2: Singing in Defeat: Psalms and Lamentations
Ch. 3: Singing of Delight and Desire: The Song of Songs
Ch. 4: Singing in the Labor of Birth: The Mothering Songs of Hannah and Mary
Ch. 5: Singing a New Community: The Christ-Hymn of Philippians 2
Ch. 6: Singing Through the Apocalypse: The Songs of Revelation
Conclusion: Singing a Brighter World into Being

Sponsored by Karl Moyer

How do we approach the work of discernment in our music ministry? How do we do the work of discerning, with humility, the unique musical landscape of the communities that we find ourselves serving? What is our role in shaping that landscape? How do we respond to the growing diversity present in our pews, culturally, theologically and in expressions of faith?

The holy work of discernment requires spending time in a place of questioning and unknowing. It is liminal space, and it is often uncomfortable.

This breakout session is an invitation to consider Discernment as a spiritual practice in our work as music directors. With prompts from the facilitator, participants will take time to consider where they are theologically, spiritually and musically (Here I Am) and then to consider where the community is (Where Are You?).

This breakout session hopes to provide encouragement and generate ideas for those who find themselves in a place of discernment where their worshipping community is being transformed and changed; where the past no longer is and the future is yet to be. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to share their stories, experiences, and questions.

Kate Williams has become a regular collaborator for writers including Adam Tice, David Bjorlin, and Hannah Brown. This sectional will feature her tune collection, as well as other new texts and tunes from a variety of writers and composers published on GIA's Unbound platform.

This sectional will provide an overview of creation theology from the time of Francis of Assisi ("All Creatures of Our God and King") through the most recent hymns, demonstrating the changes in theology reflected in various eras and cultures.

Sponsored by David English

Singing together in worship is an expression of Christian unity. The study of congregational song is an exploration of Christian identity. Who are we, together, when we gather for worship? How are we formed and shaped by the songs that we sing? What, in fact, are the songs that we sing, considering that cherished ecumenical hymns have myriad textual and musical variations across traditions, and that different Christian traditions have peculiar core repertoires of assembly song?

Every hymnal, in a sense, represents an effort to respond to such questions. The Chapel Hymnal: An Ecumenical Collection of Congregational Song, forthcoming from Duke University Chapel and MorningStar Music/ECS Publishing Group, seeks to respond to these questions through the lens of Duke Chapel’s identity as a vibrant center of ecumenical Christian worship rooted in the love of God in Jesus Christ. Assembly song at Duke Chapel centers the Biblical psalms and the broad communal core of Christian hymnody, while also celebrating the particularities of diverse Christian traditions and cultures through inclusion of their unique hymnic repertoire in worship.

This sectional will: describe the process used to establish robust editorial criteria for The Chapel Hymnal, and share those criteria; highlight the hymnal’s advisory panel of scholar-practitioners (including numerous Fellows and members of THS) representing diverse Christian traditions; introduce the hymnal’s psalter, newly translated and pointed for chanting; model the hymnal’s potentially novel paradigm for presenting songs from the global South; and review the research used to determine core repertoire—both ecumenical and “tradition specific”—featured in The Chapel Hymnal.