Assembly music, prayer draw inspiration from around world
Feb. 20, 2006
NOTE: Photographs and related reports are available at http://umns.umc.org.
By Linda Bloom*
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (UMNS) - For Jorge Lockward, being part of the music team at the World Council of Churches' 9th Assembly has meant making connections - musically, spiritually and globally.
When Lockward, an executive with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, was invited to go to Porto Alegre by his mentor, the Rev. Michael Hawn, he couldn't say no. Hawn, an American Baptist, is the assembly's music director and also music director at United Methodist-related Perkins School of Theology in Dallas.
Attending the assembly, which meets Feb. 14-23, has allowed Lockward to meet people he's admired from a distance. It was a thrill, for example, to have four composers come up to him after the opening worship and say, "Thank you for doing my song."
Whether playing the keyboards, singing in the choir or assisting Hawn with many other tasks, Lockward has found inspiration at the assembly. "Singing is always prayer," he says, and when the songs become spontaneous, "it's deep prayer."
The Rev. Tercio Junker, a Brazilian Methodist pastor who teaches liturgy at the Methodist university in Sao Paulo, is serving as assistant music director under Hawn.
For him, the assembly experience is all about how you greet and connect with people. "It makes a difference in the way you see the world," he explains. "Everyone should have an experience like this."
The morning and evening prayer services occur daily under the type of "big-top" tent often used by circuses. But there is no ringmaster rallying the audience beneath the green, red and gold stripes. Instead, a volunteer choir and musicians playing instruments ranging from trumpet to electric guitar to drums draw participants in and hold them, clapping and singing and swaying, after the service has ended.
Ken Guest, a United Methodist from New York, learned the benefits of volunteering for the choir when he attended the 1991 WCC assembly in Canberra, Australia. He considers the chore of arriving a little earlier in the morning a welcome tradeoff for "such an amazing spiritual peace."
Assembly choir volunteers have to learn the music on the spot. "Most of the choir is local, from Porto Alegre," he explains. "They've been practicing for quite a while."
Because of the diversity of participants, music and liturgy, "you really get a sense that God is all around the world," Guest adds. "I think the worship and the music are the best parts of the WCC assemblies."
Another volunteer choir member, Mark Bowman, is a part-time music director for two United Methodist congregations in Chicago and counts both Hawn and Lockward as mentors. He considers the assembly "a chance to meet some of the best musicians from around the world."
Much of the music found in the worship book was offered by the composers, free of charge, for use only during the assembly, according to Hawn. That made the diverse selection affordable. "There's a lot of good will involved," he says.
Sometimes, as during the Eastern Orthodox prayer service Feb. 18, the music is focused on a cappella voices - and the words.
For the Orthodox, "so much liturgy is sung and chanted," explains the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe. "We've tried to be more fluid in our prayer."
Henry-Crowe has been working toward this moment for the past two years as moderator of the assembly worship committee. The United Methodist pastor is director of the chapel at Emory University in Atlanta.
"One of the early questions was, 'What is the meaning of worship and prayer, and how can we pray together?'" she recalls. It became clear, she adds, that prayer "is central to our common faith," and the key was to bring different aspects of the understanding of prayer together.
"It's an attempt to be more inclusive in every way," Henry-Crowe says. The challenge is that "from every tradition and every culture, there's diversity within diversity."
At the WCC assembly, "Christology is that which holds the center," she says. "Our expressions of the faith and understanding of God's grace come across in many ways."
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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