The Summer Time Has Come and Gone!

The summer time has come and gone. I’ve had a great time.

As you all know, for 6 weeks this summer, I started the first Urban Worship Songwriting Internship. It was an amazing time! We had 5 amazing interns. They wrote 18 quality songs. We wrote urban worship congregational songs about justice, shalom, reconciliation, the Holy Spirit, and other not so common worship themes.  We had a really great time. To learn more about the interns experience, you can log onto:

http://urbanworshipinstitute.blogspot.com/

After the internship, I recovered for a few weeks and headed to the UK for training in Arts in Missions. There were about 60+ professional ethnodoxologist with a variety of expertise from ethnodramatology to musicology to various forms visual arts. It was a really great time. I was on the worship team and each day we worshiped in the style of a particular continent or country, which was led by an native and/or export of that particular place in the world. Again, it was great time! Check out this youtube video about the event:

Currently I’m in Atlanta at the Catalyst Conference. This is my first year here. I’m not speaking or playing, just attending with a group called Uptick. It’s been a good experience. If you haven’t been to Catalyst, I want to encourage you to go. Someone told me that Catalyst is the best and worst of evangelical Christianity all in one place. It’s a great place to do an Andy Crouch Cultural Analysis:

1)   What does Catalyst assume of the world?

2)   What does Catalyst assume about the way the world should be?

3)   What does Catalyst make possible?

4)   What does Catalyst make impossible (or at least a lot more difficult)?

5)   What new culture is created in response to Catalyst?

If you've been to Catalyst or know about Catalyst,  do the cultural analysis and let me know what you think!

Great Global Songs we did at The Calvin Symposium

I just received this link from Robin Harris, president of International Council of Ethnodoxologist. There are some great songs in these worship services, so feel free to watch the service and take some of the songs to your congregation!

Symposium 2011 - Thursday morning worship from CICW on Vimeo.

Symposium 2011 - Thursday afternoon vespers from CICW on Vimeo.

Urbana Day #5 - Robin Harris of ICE

I met a lot of great people being at Urbana.  My friend Kenny Wallace and I at dinner with Robin Harris, the CEO of International Council for Ethnodoxoligist (ICE).  Robin is a really cool lady.

Ethnodoxology is the study of how people from different cultures worship.  To find out more about Ethnodoxology, click on the following link.

I found out about ICE a few months ago when I was doing research for the book I'm writing about music, cultural diversity, and Chrisitan communities.  ICE is a network that exists to help Christ followers to express themselves musically and with arts in their own cultural expression.  What's unique about ICE is that they bring ethnomusicology, missiology, worship studies, and the arts all together.  It's pretty cool.

We had a great conversation of how ICE and Making a Melody could partner in the future.  We mutually are looking forward to growing the relationship.  You will hear more about details in the future. 

Check out their site and leave me some comments about what you think.