Late last spring I got one of those invitations that just makes you want to shout, "YES!" 

My friend Amy Baker, a fellow parishioner at St. Gregory’s, San Francisco is Program Director at Old Firehouse School, Mill Valley.  She wondered if I’d want to lead a half-day in service for all the teachers at Old Firehouse.  She wanted the work,  

- to be rooted in brain development (why music is so fundamental for humans, why young children respond so well to music and rhythm, how we can use early childhood development to make our teaching lives easier/better/etc…)

- very practical (specific songs, but more emphasis on learning useful principles and musical basics that smart teachers can take and use creatively)

- and very reassuring and unintimidating (so that even people who think they know nothing about music and/or who have been told they can't sing will be comfortable integrating sung and other/rhythmical music into their classroom lives)

What a great invitation to share Music that Makes Community’s work and discoveries with teachers who already sensed that singing together shapes our humanity! And to encourage them to risk singing more in their classes! Yes! Yes! Yes! 

So what in the science would help us find our way? 

Could our noticing free us from the interpretative restraint of the commonplace computer metaphor for the brain and thinking - data delivery, data storage, and data retrieval? 

Could we shape a fragment of practice and experience that would help us discover “people-making” in our singing together (borrowing systems theorist Virginia Satir’s wonderful name for the mutual formation that we are always offering one another). 

Would we hear whispers of “tacit knowing,” scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi’s description of the knowing and truth that’s there before speech and gives life to personal knowledge? 

Over the coming year the MMC blog is featuring composers who write paperless music! While you may recognize a few names from our song collections and workshops, we're especially excited to share new compositional voices bringing breadth, depth, and richness to an evolving body of music sung without paper. Each composer has generously agreed to offer a free piece to the MMC community; others can be purchased from the composer directly or found in existing resources. We hope you'll enjoy the videos, audio clips, and sample scores, and find new songs to share with your community.

About Kerri Meyer:

Kerri serves St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and is a candidate for ordination. In another chapter of her life, she was the Executive Director of Mila Vocal Ensemble, a professional women's group specializing in the folk music traditions of Eastern Europe and Georgia. The Christian vocation to justice-seeking neighbor-love motivates her work and her singing. Kerri is well-known to the MMC community through several songs, including Go On Your Way in Joy, My Friends and There Is Enough. 

Several of the songs below are from Resistance Through Preaching and Song, a project involving several MMC presenters including Kerri and Sylvia Miller-Mutia. Comprised of six pastors from various denominations, the group is harnessing the liberating, prophetic power of the gospel and the role of song in countering an empire which seeks to tell a single story about people. They believe that using scriptures to create new songs to sing in worship will help open ears to hear, tongues to proclaim, and hearts to receive the gospel anew.

Over the coming year we'll regularly feature new composers who write paperless music! While you may recognize a few names from our song collections and workshops, we're especially excited to share new compositional voices bringing breadth, depth, and richness to an evolving body of music sung without paper. Each composer has generously agreed to offer a free piece to the MMC community; others can be purchased from the composer directly or found in existing resources. We hope you'll enjoy the videos, audio clips, and sample scores, and find new songs to share with your community.

About Angela Morris:

If Brooklyn’s music circles draw a Venn diagram, saxophonist-composer Angela Morris thrives in the loop between avant-jazz and pop. Originally from Toronto, Canada and based in NYC, she has performed throughout North America and Europe. Her vocal group Rallidae released their new album, Turned, and Was, in November 2016 on the NYC-based label Gold Bolus Recordings; their debut Paper Birds was praised by AllAboutJazz as “an exceptional debut by and exciting and innovative new band.”

Morris is a member of Motel and TMT Trio, two collaborative trios that have respectively released albums in 2017: like you always do, I always did too by Motel (Prom Night Records), and Star Ballad by TMT Trio. Morris composes and co-leads several groups, including a 17-piece big band with Anna Webber – she is an alumna of the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop lead by Jim McNeely and studied composition with the Grammy-nominated jazz composer Darcy James Argue. In addition to her own projects, she performs with Helado Negro, Jason Ajemian’s Folk-Lords, Myra Melford, and Jessica Pavone. Morris also gives workshops and private lessons, serves as a presenter for Music that Makes Community, and coordinates music and liturgy at Saint Lydia's Dinner Church in Brooklyn.

Over the coming year we'll regularly feature a composer who writes paperless music! While you may recognize a few names from our song collections and workshops, we're especially excited to share new compositional voices bringing breadth, depth, and richness to an evolving body of music sung without paper. Each composer has generously agreed to offer a free piece to the MMC community; others can be purchased from the composer directly or found in existing resources. We hope you'll enjoy the videos, audio clips and sample scores, and find many new songs to share with your community.

About Barbara Cates:

Barbara Cates has never thought of herself as a composer until now, but she usually has melodies rolling around in her head, and sometimes they attach themselves to words, or the right words rolling around call forth a melody. The inclusive, intuitive approach to composing at Music that Makes Community workshops have brought something forth from deep within or beyond; one song even came to her in a dream! 

Barbara has had many musical influences: Foreign Service postings in Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uzbekistan, living at The Taizé Community for a time in her youth, and exposure to a wide variety of paperless musical traditions, from Jubilee Gospel to Sephardic to Georgian polyphony, at Vocal Week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV.

At home in Baltimore she is part of two faith communities: Memorial Episcopal Church, where the informal Faith@Eight and Taizé services give her a chance to experiment, and Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, where she sings in a choir with a wonderfully inclusive repertoire. She and her husband Matthew Stremba sing to their cats, Bobur and Koshka. Barbara also convenes MMC’s new Baltimore Practice Group at the Cathedral of the Incarnation.

Each month over the coming year we'll feature a composer who writes paperless music! While you may recognize a few names from our song collections and workshops, we're especially excited to share new compositional voices bringing breadth, depth, and richness to an evolving body of music sung without paper. Each composer has generously agreed to offer a free piece to the MMC community; others can be purchased from the composer directly or found in existing resources. We hope you'll enjoy the videos, audio clips and sample scores, and find many new songs to share with your community.

About Debbie Holloway:

Debbie Holloway is a congregant and sometimes-composer at St. Lydia's Dinner Church in Gowanus, Brooklyn. St Lydia's is where she was first introduced to paperless congregational songleading, which meshed naturally with her other musical proclivities and interests.

After working by day in Operations at the Museum of Food and Drink, Debbie enjoys exerting creativity in her side gigs as a freelance film critic. But her first love was music; whenever she can, she loves to make music with her husband or siblings, participate in choral singing, and support the music of other artists. Congregational songleading holds a special place in her heart because of its nonperformative aspect, simplicity, and the trust and camaraderie it builds within a community. 

While these songs are her first few efforts, she hopes these will be the first of many.

Each month over the coming year we'll feature a composer who writes paperless music! While you may recognize a few names from our song collections and workshops, we're especially excited to share new compositional voices bringing breadth, depth and richness to an evolving body of music sung without paper. Each composer has generously agreed to offer a free piece to the MMC community; others can be purchased from the composer directly or found in existing resources. We hope you'll enjoy the videos and sample scores, and find many new songs to share with your community.

About Bret Hesla:

Composer/songleader Bret Hesla leads singing for groups of ordinary people. With guitar and banjo, he has spent much of the past 30 years collecting, writing, songleading and performing music on issues of peace, justice and sustainable living, in gatherings of community groups, faith communities, schools, peace/justice groups.

This post originally appeared on the ELCA Worship Blog. Paul Vasile is the Executive Director of Music that Makes Community.

For over ten years Music That Makes Community has hosted workshops around the United States and Canada inviting participants to experience the power of paperless singing. The work started with a question and a challenge: how could we invite worshippers to participate in liturgy without hymnals, bulletins, or screens? How might clergy and musicians develop the skills – non-verbal communication, modeling and imitation, focused listening – to lead song (and liturgy) with sensitivity and care? And without minimizing the richness and depth of musical experiences mediated through paper, how could singing ‘by heart’ strengthen community and invite the participation of reluctant or disenfranchised singers?

For twenty-one years, Scott served as Program Director for Worship and Music for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He recently relocated to Toronto where he is currently freelancing as a musician, liturgist, and teacher. 

The week that Christians call “holy” is coming soon, as it does each year. The ancient liturgies of this week summon us all to sing. Short acclamations of faith stand at the heart of the Christian year. It rarely takes a lot of words to say powerful, strong, and true things. Sometimes, less is best. Sometimes, words alone are not enough. Many of the acclamations from the traditional liturgical journey of holy week accompany the actions of a gathered community, not passive spectators.

“Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord” may be proclaimed as we process through the streets of our neighborhood. Learn a joyous, three-part 'Hosanna' taught by Holly Phares.

“Where charity and love prevail, there is God” we sing as we kneel at the feet our friends and enemies, humbly washing their feet, as Christ did for us. Watch Debbie Lou Ludolph teach 'Between Darkness and Light.'

“We adore you, O Christ and we bless you” we might sing as we move reverently, yet confidently, to the cross of Christ to receive healing and wholeness, perhaps leaving something from our own being that needs to be discarded. Hear Lindsey Nye lead her original song, 'Have You Died Before.'

“The light of Christ” we declare, while shivering in the cold spring night around the new fire and the pillar of light, waiting with Christians around the world and throughout all time to once again greet the resurrection. Feel the joy of resurrection as Nancy Boldt McLaren teaches 'In Christ We Live.'

Brian Hehn is the Director of The Center for Congregational Song, the new initiative that The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada launches in October 2017.

The Hymn Society is a community made up of hymn writers, song writers, hymnologists, song enliveners, and many other kinds of people. What unites us is a passion for congregational song. We believe that the holy act of singing together shapes faith, heals brokenness, transforms lives, and renews peace. Because of those core beliefs, our work is to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational singing. So, it is a natural fit that The Hymn Society and Music That Makes Community be in partnership with one another. The core values on the MMC website echo much of what our members hold true, and many of our members are a part of both of our communities. 

The Hymn Society is excited for what MMC will be bringing to our conference this summer. Our members will have ample opportunity to dive into the MMC experience with a Sunday afternoon sing and a 2-session workshop on Tuesday. If you’ve never been to a Hymn Society conference before, what you’ll find is a group of scholars, practitioners, pastors, priests, poets, composers, and congregation members who are eager to sing and learn from each other. My first Hymn Society conference was in 2009 and I have never looked back! The combination of hospitality, knowledge, humility and skill with which our members approach their work is akin to the community that MMC is building with its membership. It makes for a wonderful week of singing and learning that is memorable and faith-shaping. I hope you’ll join us.

Paul Vasile is a interim/transitional church musician, consultant, and composer based in New York City. He has been a Music that Makes Community presenter since 2011 and now serves as MMC's Executive Director.

Several years ago, I hosted my first Winter Solstice gathering. It had been a season of loss and transition and I didn't feel especially cheery or comfortable approaching the holidays. Adding to the uneasiness, my ministry as a church musician asked me to give my best to liturgies and concerts that brought hope, peace and joy to others. But I just wasn't feeling it.

So I gathered a group of close friends in my apartment on the longest night of the year. We prayed, we sat in silence, we shared a simple dinner of homemade soup, and we sang. It wasn't more than a hymn and a few short chants but there was something tender and beautiful in our voices. Our breathing softened as we filled the room with sound, making space for the unsettled and difficult parts of our lives. I think we left with a little more strength for the journey, with a measure of grace for the days ahead. I know I did.

Cara Modisett is a collaborative pianist, essayist, teacher, and a contributing editor to Episcopal Cafe. She currently serves as Music Director at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Virginia. Cara attended our MMC workshop at the Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center in October and offered this poignant reflection at the concluding Eucharist.

   We have prepared for the mystery of this hour.

Last night, twenty or so human beings and one yellow lab circled a campfire, and it struck me how small an ember we were, glowing deep in the woods, circled in turn by towering trees and, beyond those, by the high, silver constellations, the waxing moon and the sweep of the Milky Way, so distant and incomprehensible, and also so close that it felt like we could almost hear the music of the spheres.

We seemed fragile, this circle unbroken, singing and laughing and roasting marshmallows, and our music moved from the songs of summer childhoods to something deeper. These last days, while we have been sharing these mysterious hours, inviting God and one another into our souls and hearts, the whirlwind of the world has kept circling beyond us, the hurricanes of weather and politics.

While I was thinking this, and during a break in the singing, one of us stepped forward to give thanks for being able to sing in the night when the morning is what we wish for. And in that thanksgiving was the promise that our fire was stronger than it seemed, small as it was within the world.

     We begin with breath – that’s all the tools you need.

We’ve spent these last few days as teachers and learners and as friends-in-becoming, and often the lessons we’ve spoken have carried as much weight as the music we’ve sung: 

Gather, invite, smile.

Take things step by step.

Music without dissonance is boring.

Oxytocin works.

When we move out of our comfort zones, we can find great joy.

When we make music together, we are never on our own.

“Everywhere I go,” someone told me last night, “I hear someone singing.”

Trust ourselves, trust each other.

You don’t have to be perfect.

A song is a container for the message, the ministry, the prayer.

The congregation is the choir.

Liturgy creates holy space for holy work.

Even when we forget the words, the music doesn’t have to end.

What is created through us can reach far beyond where we are.

Daniel Simons is the Priest for Liturgy, Hospitality, and Pilgrimage at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City. In January 2017 he assumes a new role as Director of Spiritual Formation at the Trinity Retreat Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut, while continuing to oversee Trinity’s pilgrimage program.

As a Priest at Trinity Church Wall Street, I am called to imagine and create liturgical spaces that welcome visitors who attend our historic parish. For many years, the 10 a.m. Service in St. Paul's Chapel was a place of experimentation and innovation, as we frequently offered hospitality to worshippers from other states or countries.

The global and religious diversity of our guests at St. Paul's posed unique challenges, especially because they typically comprised over half of the congregation. Many had no experience of Anglican worship. Planning liturgy in this context required us to abandon assumptions about who belonged and to create intentional spaces for community learning. You can read more about the service in an article published by the Anglican Theological Review.

Music That Makes Community’s method of teaching and singing music emerged as a solution to these challenges: we gathered and wrote music that could be taught in the moment, might be sung in a visitor’s native language, and was beautiful as simple unaccompanied melody or with added harmonies. The result was a tapestry of song that gave confidence to the regulars and included the visitors in a single community of participation. Our congregational singing seemed almost miraculous in its beauty, simplicity, and effectiveness. 

The Rev. Mieke Vandersall is the founding pastor of Not So Churchy. She has been to numerous Music That Makes Community workshops and uses paperless music when she leads worship.

I attended my first MMC workshop in St. Louis in 2010. At that point in my life I was seeking a traditional parish job as a Presbyterian pastor, but because of the restrictive policies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) against out LGBT people I was unable to live into this calling. The stories behind this reality are complex and long, but the result of these stories is that I felt a call emerging to begin a new worshiping community. 

I entered into my first night of the workshop and was led in song. I remember being overwhelmed with the feeling that I was worshiping for the first time in a very, very long time. I was being served through the incredible feast that the leadership of MMC provides. My soul was being watered and nourished and I began, even in that first gathering, to get back in touch with my passion for ministry and for providing the kind of space I experienced that first hour of worship. A space that allowed for my voice to be heard clearly and yet blend in with the clear and beautiful voices all around me.

Liesl Spitz shares 'Our Mother in Heaven,' a creative adaptation of a song from Southern Africa, at our Holy Week Retreat last February.

I’ve always been happier coming up with harmonies than singing solos. Until I stepped into St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in Brooklyn, it never occurred to me that my voice might be strong enough to lead a group. There I learned to lead song paperlessly. I relied not only on my voice, but my ability to connect with everyone in the room, to communicate with my body and my eyes, and most of all my willingness to be vulnerable. Leading song doesn’t require a “solo” voice— just practice, and an openness to learn out loud.

MMC presenter Sylvia Miller-Mutia leads an energetic Sanctus that would be effective for paperless, intergenerational worship. 

Last month, Pastor Abby Leese and members of Zion Lutheran Church in Etters, PA visited a sister congregation that has incorporated paperless music into their liturgy. They took a Sunday morning field trip to another Zion Lutheran Church, just twenty minutes away in York, PA, which offers an intergenerational eucharist geared to help families with children worship and learn together. 

Mark Mummert, the congregation's Cantor (and a longtime MMC collaborator) helped develop and lead the liturgy and has made their order of worship available as a resource. He also offered some helpful context for the service. 

"We created a bulletin that is pretty didactic, so we don't have to say much. Also, the entire service has accompanying visual images, with art that comments on the action. The powerpoint for the service has no musical information (texts or musical notation) but we do sing some classic hymnody from the hymnal so it's not all paperless."

Pastor Abby, who attended our MMC workshop in Baltimore last fall, has generously shared some of the things she noticed during her community's visit. As you read, perhaps you'll notice the way that paperless leadership at Zion Lutheran Church is helping create space for deepening trust, shared leadership, flexibility, and connection to the Sacred within and through the community. 

Paul Vasile is a interim/transitional church musician, consultant, and composer based in New York City. He has been a Music that Makes Community presenter since 2011 and now serves as MMC's Executive Director.

My second year of graduate school, I registered for an elective in continuo playing (see above for examples of figured bass, i.e. Baroque chord symbols). It seemed like a great way to round out my skills as a church musician and it offered the opportunity to play different repertoire than I usually encountered as a pianist. I went to the first class with a bit of nervous anticipation, which was kicked up a notch when the professor began with an exercise to assess our skill level. Each student was given an eight-measure melody with figured bass to sightread in front of everyone.

I registered for the class to stretch myself, to gain new experiences, and to be able to perform Baroque music with more authenticity. But, approaching this moment of assessment, all I felt was fear: fear of being scrutinized, judged, inadequate. When an exceptionally gifted keyboardist played shortly before me, I was undone.
 
Intimidated and insecure, I stumbled through my excerpt, sat back down, and decided the class was too difficult. I went to the Registrar’s office the next day and signed up for a choral literature class instead, embarrassed that I had even tried in the first place. 

*          *          *

Ben Groth is currently the Associate Pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Menomonee Falls, WI. He has also worked as a musician in Lutheran and Episcopal congregations and started a choir in a mental health hospital. Ben has been a presenter at Music that Makes Community Events since 2014.

Our beauty is not in our strength,
it comes from our weakness made holy by God,
made holy by God.

Our faith is not in our knowing,
it comes from our yearning made holy by God,
made holy by God.

Our hope is not in our triumph.
It comes from our failure made holy by God,
made holy by God.

I wrote these lines in the midst of a retreat on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. Each verse shares the theme that the drive for personal success might be the greatest enemy of success as it relates to a life of faith. Strength, knowledge, triumph: these are all things that successful, well-adjusted, driven people are supposed to have. But the deeper truth is that we never get where we’re going on our own, and that the beauty, faith, and hope we yearn for can only come when we let the grace of God shine on the places of failure in our lives. In the midst of a world filled with violence, these verses ask us to let go of our own self-righteousness, and seek to empower us in the places our need is greatest.

Charlotte Moroz is an actress, musician and playwrite and the co-creator of The Society for Misfit Puppets, a year-long puppet-musical-producing team. She has been a Music that Makes Community Presenter since 2014.

Friends, I want to talk about surprise and singing today. Since leading and singing paperless music more intentionally these past years, I've noticed that the degree of surprise that I feel has increased mightily. To contextualize, I am a bit of a song-seeking missile, working in theatrical and music-making fields and attending a church where group paperless singing is the norm. And yet, I still think "hot dang, this is the coolest!" and "Wow! That was so cool/weird/awesome/unexpected!" every time I get to sing with you all. That's a 1 to 1 ratio of my surprised delight to singing with a group.

A friend and mentor of mine and an amazing musician and teacher, Jake Slichter, introduced me to the importance of surprise in making music and spurred my contemplating the delightful and motivating play of uncertainty in this kind of music-making. In this spirit, I offer 5 ways to think about singing paperless music via knowns and unknowns:

1. Without paper in front of us, our focus has the chance to shift to the group. The things we don't know become things we have in common, so we get out of our own heads and into the mind of the group as we learn together. With focus shifted, we're kids out for recess: we can't help but be game to play.

Matthew Burt is an organist, choir director, and liturgist who has been a presenter at Music that Makes Community events since 2010. He lives in Palo Alto, California, and currently serves as West Regional Councillor of the American Guild of Organists.

Jesus said, “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4), yet for centuries many churches have taught and required children to sit in respectful silence as adults lead their worship and song. As the father of a two year-old, I think that possibly the greatest humility we can embody is to view the world through the lens of a child—inquisitive, appreciative, and unencumbered by the prejudices and fears of our adult society. How then can we approach this in our liturgy and our music?

Marilyn Haskel is a composer, choir director, organist and liturgist who has been a Presenter at Music that Makes Community events since the project's beginning.


You probably know the song form "round." A melody is taught to the whole group, then the group is divided into smaller groups that are led to enter singing the melody at different times. In this round the smaller groups enter one measure after each other when it becomes a four-part round. The leader here (me!) should have learned the piece a little better before teaching, but she didn't, so making the best of a hurried situation, she corrects the melody before going on. This is a four-part round, but can also be sung as a two part round first as is done here.

The Rev. Sylvia Miller-Mutia is Rector of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Albuquerque, NM and has been a presenter at Music that Makes Community events since 2013.

One of the great things about paperless music in liturgy is that it frees us up to look at each other and to move our bodies when we sing.  If you're not holding a hymnal, you have the freedom to hold hands with your neighbor, clap, dance or sign along with a song.  

As a dancer, movement has always been an important part of my spiritual life, but it wasn't until about four years ago that I began working with a parishioner who had studied ASL to begin integrating simple sign language interpretations of some canticles, songs, and prayers of our community into worship on a regular basis.  

Incorporating elements of sign language into worship is one way we can support the participation of visual and kinesthetic learners, pre-literate and pre-verbal children, and people who are hard of hearing in our liturgies.  

I've found that "echo songs" are often a good place to start inviting congregational participation in singing and signing prayers. 

Ana Hernández is a composer, workshop facilitator, song leader, and co-founder of the Dallas/Fort Worth Threshold choir. She's been a presenter with MMC since 2010, and has composed many beautiful songs over the years that are beloved by the MMC network.

Tell Me

Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
deferred
overlong?

-Langston Hughes

In his book The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin wrote “Color is not a human or a personal reality. It is a political reality.” I combined my tune If God is Love with Langston Hughes’ Tell Me to encourage us in the real work that is necessary to create a new political reality of love. As a culture we prefer avoidance of conflict and a kind of naïve cynicism; the repetitions of platitudes that make us feel clever. What if the repetitions can be used for more than merely making us feel better and dismissing conflict? What if by learning to sing together we can hone the skills we need to work through the things that divide us? What if we were to more intentionally imagine our part in healing the nations?

Of course, this might initially seem to cause more conflict, but will ultimately move us toward deeper understanding and empathy as we come closer to one another from different worldviews. I know in my heart that there are no “others” – only us, and our refusals to engage one another at the deep levels of respect and love keep us stuck, fighting for freedom, and justice for all.

The poet, activist, and public intellectual June Jordan wrote and sang this:

We have come too far
We can’t turn ‘round
We’ll flood the streets with justice
We are freedom bound.

There’s a video of it being sung in the streets here (the tune begins at 3:34). It’s also lovely done as a round.

Zachary Walter is a recent graduate of Union Theological Seminary, where he studied preaching and worship, and is a co-founder of Yes And Ministry. He's been an MMC Presenter since 2014.



On May 14th at St Lydia’s church in Brooklyn, Yes And Ministry and Music that Makes Community will gather together to sing and share songs. I’m a co-founder of Yes And, and I’m here on the MMC blog today to tell you about who we are and what we do and what we have planned for Saturday.

It is no secret that in the United States we do not learn foreign languages easily.

This week, my community, Yes And Ministry,  is celebrating the day of Pentecost, which commemorates the Holy Spirit granting powers of language. This is an opportunity to celebrate the gifts of language,  and ignite a conversation about how our churches can often be monolingual spaces.

Written music has its own language, and can intimidate musicians without formal training. Churches and communities with a culture of musical literacy often miss opportunities to engage natural musicians without formal training. By singing written hymns that are only in English, we might be discouraging non-English speakers from full participation.

Dear Friends,

We sent a letter to our supporters today to share exciting news for Music that Makes Community. We are thrilled to report that Paul Vasile will be stepping in as Executive Director of MMC at the end of July. This news comes of course with a goodbye--we are sad to wish Rachel Kroh farewell. She has served us faithfully as Executive Director over the past year and a half and is leaving now to pursue her work as an artist and printmaker.

We extend our grateful thanks to Rachel for her hard and detailed work over these past years—she has shepherded us through the gaining our own 501c3 status, developed new ways of working with sponsoring organizations to make our work self-sustaining, developed our Board of Trustees, and provided us with a unique vibrant visual identity that reflects the beauty of our community.

Rachel has this note to share:

Friends, hearing you offer your voices so generously and bravely taught me that I have a voice too, and gave me a way into making music that I will always be grateful for. I've loved the challenge of turning a vibrant but loosely organized network of brilliant musicians and thinkers into an organization with structure, systems and processes. I will miss working with you but I am excited about all the ways MMC is going to flourish under Paul's capable leadership. –Rachel Kroh

In the past Paul Vasile has been a vital part of developing and honing our MMC worship and leadership practices. Perhaps most importantly, though, he has a great deal of experience in programmatic and organizational development, as well as fundraising, something we are going to need a lot of! We are thrilled to have Paul take us into the next phase of our life; we believe he is exactly the right person at the right time.

Times of transition are never financially easy. As we say goodbye to Rachel, and hello in a new way to Paul, might you join us in making a financial contribution to sustain the organization?

We look forward to all that is to come as we take this next step in our work together.

With love and gratitude,

Donald Schell

Chair of the Music that Makes Community Board of Trustees

P.s. Act today to help us in this exciting time of transition. Please give now!


The MMC Board of Trustees at our gathering in April: Scott Weidler, Rachel Kroh, Nancy McLaren, Donald Schell, Jake Slichter, Cricket Cooper and Paul Vasile

Hilary Seraph Donaldson is a congregational song enlivener with a passion for strengthening community through shared song, global music, and paperless worship. Her free web video series on song leading, Break into Song, is available on her YouTube channel and through her website, Transforming Every Guest. She currently serves as Pastoral Musician of Eastminster United Church in Toronto, Canada, and is pursuing doctoral studies in Musicology at the University of Toronto.


“Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.”

The joyful opening phrase of Psalm 96 invites us to renew our worship and praise God with a new song. It’s one of my favourite passages of scripture. But, I wonder if the Psalmist ever had to get up and teach a new song to a skeptical congregation?

As anyone who has tried to actually teach a new song to a group of people knows, new songs don’t always get the enthusiastic reception we are hoping for. As song leaders, we always want the gathered people to share our love and enthusiasm for whatever song we are teaching, but let’s face it: we are creatures of habit. We like singing songs we already know.

At MMC gatherings, we always learn many wonderful new songs, but this can leave us asking: how do we bring new music home? Here’s one piece of advice that I have found helpful:

Start with a song that will make its own friends.