Musicking as Liturgical Speech Acts: An Examination of Contemporary Worship Music Practices

This article examines the genre of Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) within worship contexts in terms of its formative and purposeful nature. In CWM settings, the worship leader plays a particular role in the selection and facilitation of CWM repertoire to be led by praise bands. Through the leader's consideration of the message of the CWM lyrics, and the relational nature of CWM practices, a worship leader's pedagogical decisions are integral to contributing to a space of dialogue for worship musicians. Drawing on previous literature addressing liturgical language in worship, I analyze the CWM context as a particular case where liturgical language shapes musicians’ spiritual formation. This examination of CWM practices includes an analysis of musicians’ engagement in relational musicking and meeting through I-Thou encounters. I therefore explore both the need for worship leaders to consider the multitudinous theological implications of their actions, as well as the way musicians are shaped and formed intimately through their musical engagement with CWM.

J. S. Bach’s Church Cantatas and Church Music Today

How do we as Christians today learn about worship and church music? How do we think about not only what music we will sing in Christian worship, but also the principles that should guide us in choosing and leading church music? Certainly, there are many different ways we answer that question: we study the Bible, we sing the words of the Scriptures, we read what theologians, worship leaders, and scholars of church music are writing today, we attend lectures and conferences by scholars and practitioners of church music. In this article, I offer and explore yet another example of how we live out God’s call in leading music for the Christian church: by studying the example of a faithful Christian musician from the past. My particular example for this article is the German composer and church musician Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). I want to clarify from the start that I am not arguing that J. S. Bach is the best example of a Christian church musician and certainly not that he is the only example. But Bach does offer us one example of a musician who dedicated most of his life to creating and leading music for the Christian church and sought to do so faithfully, creatively, and skillfully.

PEMBIASAAN PEMBACAAN PALI WACANA PARITTA DI PUSAT PENDIDIKAN DAN LATIHAN SIKKHADAMA SANTIBHUMI TANGERANG

The problem examined in this study was the Habit of Pāli WacanaParitta at the Sikkhadama Santibhumi Training Center in Tangerang.Beginning to hear the Pāli paritta discourse in several monasteries/cetiyathere were differences caused by the local dialect. In fact, the difference inreciting the paritta in Pāli wacana is not a mistake as the dialect of eachperson cannot be forced. However, actually this can be attempted so thatuniformity occurs in the context of the paritta discourse, because actuallythere is the same Pāli grammar. So the purpose of this study was todescribe the habituation of the paritta discourse at the SikkhadamaSantibhumi Training Center in Tangerang.This research is a qualitative descriptive study. The subjects of thisstudy were Sangha Bhikkhu, Romo/Ramani, administrators, SMBsupervisors and Sikkhadama Pusdiklat Santibhumi people. The object inthis study was the habituation of the discourse at the SikkhadamaSantibhumi Training Center in Tangerang. Data collection techniques bymeans of interviews, documentation and observation. Qualitative dataanalysis using the Miles and Huberman models. Through this research,the researcher described the phenomenon of the habituation of the parittadiscourse at the Sikkhadama Santibhumi Training Center in Tangerang.The results of this study indicate that the process of habituation ofthe paritta discourse went smoothly with the guidance of the SanghaBhikkhu. Even though the process is always given the procedure forreading. This is because the people who come from different Buddhistbackgrounds. The determinants of the level of success in theimplementation of the pitta of the paritta discourse include the guidanceof the devotional service. With good worship leaders, the people will followthe parish discourse well.

Singing and Worship in an Anglican Church Liturgy in Egba and Egba West Dioceses, Abeokuta, Nigeria

This article looks briefly at the origin or history, nature and emerging trends with regard to the singing and worship in Anglican Church Liturgy in Egba and Egba West Dioceses in the ancient metropolitan city of Abeokuta, Nigeria. The article analyses the data collected from oral interviews using atlas.ti coding method. The data are presented partly by way of frequency tables and charts. The study used qualitative approaches and conducted self-administered interviews on the major leaders, worship leaders or choir members and key lay members of the selected Anglican churches in Abeokuta. The article presents all the narratives from my sample population of the selected churches.

The Uniting Church in Australia

The Uniting Church in Australia (1977) faces the challenge of both being faithful to its inherited traditions (Methodist and Reformed), and taking the opportunity to draw on contemporary ecumenical liturgical scholarship in the preparation of new liturgies. The eucharistic liturgies follow the basic shape of Dix; the Great Prayer may be used in either the Western Catholic tradition, or prefaced by a Reformed “warrant.” There is a wide variety of baptism and related services, including some resources for an adult catechumenate. There is provision for both adult and infant baptism, as appropriate; some material for an adult catechumenate is included, but the church has not yet shown evidence of increased baptism of adults. The first phases of the renewal process involved the production of two worship books, in 1988 and 2005, covering the full range of word, sacrament, and occasional offices, and were increasingly supported by authorized CD-ROM and web-based resources. Inclusive language is used throughout. The liturgical forms are regarded as models, to be varied or supplemented with material with the same theological intent. There is now an increasing move toward local worship leaders (lay and ordained) devising liturgies using resources, including musical, with other theological bases. This raises the question of the theological integrity of the result, in words spoken and sung. The complex task of providing its liturgies for non-European cultures, including indigenous, has hardly begun, though there are services now translated into other languages. The dearth of scholarly liturgical study in theological colleges makes it difficult to see how this can be addressed. Without such historical, theological, and practical study of worship, many other developments will be prey to fashion and individual styles.