My vocation (or calling in life): church musician/leader and student — well, I’ll be in school nearly forever.
My congregation: Messiah New Hope Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls, S.D.
My favorite Bible verse: I John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
My favorite disciple: How can I choose just one?
My favorite potluck dish: artichoke and olive salad. OK, I have never had it at potluck. This is the power of suggestion.
My perfect day: would be a rotation of eating, sleeping, reading, watching TV and perhaps yoga.
Someone who inspires me: are the musicians I play and sing with at church. They are fun and brave!
People would be surprised to know that: I love to club dance or dance hip hop.
The hymn I want played at my funeral: You can’t dance to a hymn.
Lutherans are great at: making green Jell-O and all kitchen jobs in general.
I am most frustrated with my congregation when: people don’t sing or they just stand there during congregational song.
The ministry I’m most passionate about: music and young adults.
I feel most Lutheran when: I say, “It’s in the narthex.”
What “living Lutheran” means to me: to embrace all of God’s creation with love and compassion.
I’m doing God’s work with my hands when: I treat every person with the dignity God has put in them.
You need to check out St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. They dance to hymns every Sunday! See: http://www.saintgregorys.org/
It's a great place!
King David danced before the Ark of the Covenant, and was roundly criticized by his wife for it. So this is just my opinion, but I think the liturgy is one of the elements that holds the church together -- it is an element of cohesiveness. If each individual church does a Lone Ranger thing on the liturgy... well... how can "the many" feel comfortable about attending -- especially in this day and age of travel and a shrinking world?
KKahler,
I think you're reading Scott Weidler's description and assuming it's a solo performance dance. The whole congregation dances a simple step to a hymn all are singing as all leave their seats and gather around the altar table and then at the end of the liturgy, after communion, everyone dances the final carol (which originally meant "a danced hymn"). On a typical Sunday there are between five and twenty visitors, some church-shopping, some from out of town. The simple dance steps get taught (or reminded) for everyone just before they happen. There are regular attendees in wheelchairs who join the dance and chairs on the perimeter of the altar area (and no pressure) for any who opt out.
Hymns dance!! Check out Paul Manz--
I can dance to a hymn- it's not just a whim!
Baroque rhythm shouldn't-- cause a schism
It's more complex than rock-- is that such a shock?
But some get a bump, from rock's thump thump!
But a hymn is the words-- expressed so we're stirred
The tune can be varied-- the Word should be carried.
So I'll get my grove on-- and dance and sing on.
One of the oldest framents of written music is the "Sursum corda"-- Lift up your hearts. We lift them unto the Lord-- from the mass. I remember being in the Cathedral of Strassbourg in France and I was a Lutheran kid in a strange land and didn't speak French-- but when they began the communion liturgy and I heard that music I felt at home and among the christian family. ( I communed that day. ****Lightening bolt from Rome!) I so agree with what you say-- A kid raised in a praise band church who has never experienced the liturgy and hymns (old and new) will go into a Lutheran church somewhere else and have no sense of identity or "common ground." Community and tradition are about more than an amateur pop concert. It's markers of identity which have meaning. Especially significant on ash Wednesday-- our unifying marker of identity being the cross.
that's fragments