The Rev. Nancy Boldt McLaren is Minister for Faith Formation and Discipleship at Storrs Congregational Church in Storrs, CT. 



I am in the West Bank of Palestine for my sixth time, making observations and music with a group called Musicians without Borders that has a lot in common with MMC whose mission is to connect people through music.   Working with musicians and music schools in war-torn areas all over the world, Musicians without Borders aims to use music to “bridge divides, connect communities, and to heal the wounds of war.” By teaching the natural musicians of these war torn areas community music-making techniques very similar to what we teach at MMC events, the trainees are then able to teach, facilitate and empower others in their own particular context.  The embodiment of this group in Palestine takes a few forms, but the one I get to hang out with is the music school, Sounds of Palestine.  

As luck would have it, I learn, on my first day in Bethlehem, that Sounds of Palestine is newly in need a choir teacher for their elementary-aged students. Just days earlier the program lay dormant and homeless, following a nasty power struggle from within.  One of the gnarliest dimensions of the decades-long military occupation is how the fabric of Palestinian society is threatened from within.  As resources are stolen and limited monetary reparations made, the economy fails and daily life regularly grinds to a halt due to violence and excessive bureaucratic checkpoints. Palestinians are often left at odds with each other. As soon as I agree to teach the newly formed Sounds of Palestine contingent who have come through the struggle, I sense a creeping awareness of my inadequacy in light of this so recent and so seismic reformation of the organization.  And yet, as thugs threaten, corrupt police are summoned and bombs explode, the music of a pride of children rumbles, squeaks, and honks.  Armed with their commitment to simply show up, to be present and to lift up their voices, the children, teachers, and supporters find a way where there is no way.  The way leads them to an abandoned building with the most beautiful garden I’ve ever laid eyes on: the new Sounds of Palestine, in the Garden.

Did I mention I don’t speak Arabic? And the kids I am working with, all children who make their homes in refugee camps, no english?  

Ana Hernandez 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.


Ana lead Don't Be Afraid at our MMC Presenters' Retreat in September of 2015 at Holy Cross Monastery in Westpark, NY.

“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.”
- The Eleventh Step of Alcoholics Anonymous

They met EVERY Sunday in a beautiful, candlelit room for an hour. Some went out together afterward, some went home, some stayed and chatted over coffee or tea. The gathering was called LifeLine, and it was neither a church service nor a 12-step meeting. Our only purpose was to work the 11th step together, so that we could walk each other through the ways of prayer and meditation, into conscious contact with God. I sang with them two or three times a month for three years, and they were the most intentional spiritual community of which I was a part. 

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.

See the listing for Cantemus Pacem Mundi in our MMC Songs Database.

"Cantemus pacem mundi. We sing for the peace of the world."

Composer Doug von Koss wrote this when teaching in Italy as Italians were marching to protest the United States invasion of Iraq. He wanted a strong musical statement that would “lift the desire for peace to a more assertive and active place.” He borrowed a melody he had heard in Canada and used this Latin phrase as the text.

Singing beyond the page allows us to connect musically and spiritually with each other because we listen more intently: adjusting volume, tuning pitches to our neighbors’ harmonies, fitting different rhythms together simultaneously.  In a reverberant space the sound moves in a lively way throughout the room. Less effort is required individually to sing in such a room, but the ability to sing as an ensemble may be challenged.

Jacob Slichter is an MMC presenter, writer and drummer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has been a Board of Trustees member since 2014.

Gathering a group with a paperless song is a powerful way to set the tone for connection, openness and learning in worship. Here are three of the reasons we think so, and some tips on how to start strong.

Here's a video of Marilyn Haskel leading Peace, Perfect Peace by Robinson McLellan. Its not the best quality but it is a good example since the place where Marilyn's leading, St. Paul's Chapel, is a busy space where getting the group's attention can be a challenge.

1. Gathering with a song declares, “Here WE are.”
The act of singing together creates one giant we that includes regulars and newcomers, those in grief, those amid great joy . . . everyone.   A paperless gathering song can further reinforce that declaration by lifting everyone’s attention from a page to the other faces and voices in the room.

Tips for success:

Teach the whole song, even if some know it already. When leading a gathering song, teach the song, even one familiar to the entire group, as if no one knows it.  Why?  Because even if everyone in the room has sung the song before, and no newcomers are present, your teaching leads the group away from insider behavior and models hospitality.  Thus, your leadership prepares the group to welcome and include everyone who walks through the door.

Don’t force the mood. Consider that you are leading a song, not imposing a particular mood on the group.  Get people to sing together, while allowing them to occupy their varied emotional spaces.  For example, consider the difference between leading with a relaxed smile that says, “Be who you are,” and with a forced smile that says, “Get with the program.  We’re here to be happy!” Allowing people some space will bring forth more authentic and powerful singing.

MMC Presenter AnnaMarie Hoos is Congregational Communications and Program Manager at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and a member of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church. She has been involved in the MMC project since the very beginning.



AnnaMarie led Night Has Fallen at our MMC event at the Bishop's Ranch in California in January, 2016. See the listing for Night Has Fallen in our Resources database here. 

I spent a year living in community on Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland. That far north, in the winter, the dark comes early and the sunrise late. Also the island, even now, has few lights at night; you can see the light of every home and the headlights of cars cresting the arch of the hill two miles away as they come into the town of Fionnphort, across the sound on the nearby Isle of Mull. Once the power on the island went out in a storm, and we waited a couple of days for someone to come from the mainland to restore it. Night is something to take seriously there.

Rev. Donald Schell is a Founder of Music that Makes Community and Member of the MMC Board of Trustees. He is also a Co-Founder of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.



Rita Pihra-Majurinen taught us the beautiful song Holy, Holiness by Peter and Ellen Allard at our NYC Practice Group Gathering February 20, 2016 in Brooklyn, NY.

As a young pastor in Idaho, over a week of visiting a parishioner who was dying of cancer, I saw him go from conversations to dimmed consciousness to comatose silence and finally stillness except for his slow breathing. When his family was there, I’d talk with them. When he was alone, I’d speak a prayer for him aloud, remembering that hearing persists even in coma.  

For his working life, Joe had traveled the intermountain west as a cattle-broker. And when I first met him, he told me a story from his teenaged years when he’d worked summers as a sheepherder in Utah. Early one summer, alone in high meadow, he’d planned to sleep out, but near sunset, a sudden storm blew in, rain turned to sleet and then it began to snow. There was little cover and no way he could get down from the mountain. He was soaked and ill-prepared for the cold. Not expecting to make it through the night, he gathered the sheep round him, and lay down among them, reciting the 23rd psalm, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” and closed his eyes and slept. First light of morning penetrated the thin layer of snow that covered him and his wooly protectors. He told me that story to explain to his new pastor why he wanted the “23rd Psalm, King James Version” at his funeral.  

Scott Weidler is Program Director for Worship and Music at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago, IL. He is a Music that Makes Community Presenter and has been Board of Trustees Member since 2014.


Find the song listing for Come, Come Whoever You Are in our MMC Songs Database here.

She was an older, Swedish woman who had clearly been a faithful Lutheran her whole life. She knew that Luther’s Small Catechism included the question – What does this mean? – over and over again, each time succinctly providing the “approved” answer.

When I introduced the Rumi text, “Come, come whoever you are,” one Lent, she habitually asked, “But Scott, what does this mean?” Luckily, she’s wise, open-minded and inquisitive. We had a delightful conversation, wandering phrase by phrase through Rumi’s poignant text, discovering that it just might mean different things to different people. It might mean different things to me on different days. The answers to deep questions aren’t always as easy as expected or desired.

Come, come whoever you are:

Really? Whoever I am? You don’t know how messed up I am. Really?

worshiper, wanderer, lover of leaving.

Not enough. Often (even though I hide it well). What might I need to leave behind?

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Which caravan? My life? Our country? The church?

Good reminder because feelings of despair are sadly familiar.

Though you have broken your vows

What vows? Even the ones I made to myself that no one knows about?

a thousand times, come, come again all.

Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven times; Rumi says a thousand times, but God doesn’t count. Forgiveness – the call to reconciliation – is eternal.

For too many, Lent is perceived not only as a time of confession and repentance, but of deep sadness and gloom. Music is reserved, maybe even maudlin. Guilt is often internalized during this seemingly eternal season. But there is a more wholesome (which is very old) way of understanding Lent.

Cricket Cooper is Rector at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Pittsfield, MA. She has been a participant and presenter at many MMC events and has been a member of the MMC Board of Trustees since 2014. 

Like many people, my first introductions to paperless music in 1970’s worship left me with mixed feelings.  Frustratingly, there only seemed to be two “moods”: either a hyper-caffeinated clapping frenzy, or the other extreme intended to be meditative but too often flagging into a sort of sad despondency.  

Music that Makes Community offers a repertoire of paperless music that can span and speak to the entire spectrum of emotions we call upon in prayer.  We also learn that through our leading, we can shift intensity and mood by bringing the volume or tempo down or up, by breathing energy into the music with our whole bodies, or silencing a chant to a hum so that prayer petitions may be spoken over the top.

The beautiful thing about the songs in our website resources is precisely that they are meant to be led “by heart,” meaning that any piece of music that the leader chooses can be used in a variety of situations.

Paperless music can serve as a powerful welcoming gesture, unifying the diverse voices that have assembled, regardless of religious tradition or musical experience. Paperless wedding music provides a unique opportunity for guests to bless the couple with the gift of their voice as well as their presence. Singing together can also make space for the couple and guests to be more fully present, to relax into and savor the moment.

Scott Weidler is Program Director for Worship and Music at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago, IL. He is a Music that Makes Community Presenter and has been Board of Trustees Member since 2014.

Scott Weidler lead Khudaya Rahem Ker at the MMC Presenters' Retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in September, 2015.

When I first got involved with Music that Makes Community and was starting to spread the word across the church, it was not uncommon for people to think I was talking about a workshop on using screens and projection in worship. Sadly, that was the only kind of “paperless” experience they had had.

When I had a chance to describe what we were up to, people very often would respond with something like, “Oh, how wonderful it is when a congregation knows something so well that they can sing it from memory.” Mm, well, yes, it might be wonderful, but that isn’t really what we’re about either. How might a visitor feel in that context?

Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is a Psalmist from small-town Iow. He was a participant at Music That Makes Community in Minneapolis in 2014. He serves events across denominations and publishes via PsalmImmersion.com. 



Epiphany is one of my favorite liturgical seasons because its very theme points to participation: manifest this Holy Presence that we have longed for in Advent and have celebrated at Christmas. 

A paperless song holds the possibility of full engagement by the community, leaving no one out because of reading ability. A few years ago, when I was part of Marcia McFee's Worship Design Studio podcast, I was craving that full-participation feeling on behalf of my community. That's how "Your Light Has Come" arrived as a kind of processional chant. 

The lyrics hover around Isaiah 60, a text that hits "refresh" on the screens of our imaginations: "Pay attention. Something big is happening and you are part of it!" "Your Light Has Come" intents to help us be in touch with that invitation and call. 

       Lift your head, raise your eyes, look around:
            Your light has come! Your light has come!
       Light the world, heal the earth, bear the Christ:
           Your light has come! Your light has come!

Jennifer Baker-Trinity serves as a church musician and writer in the scenic Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania and was a participant at MMC in Chicago in 2011 and 2014.

This experiment Rev. Rob Boulter did with O Come O Come Emmanuel at MMC in Baltimore is one idea for how to use the practice of a paperless song leading to sing Christmas carols with groups who may not know all the words or tune but want to participate. How great would a setting like this be on a busy street corner full of dazed last-minute shoppers?

A few years ago, my husband who is a pastor met with a family caring for their ailing mother with Alzheimer’s. It was Christmastime and my husband offered to sing with them. He began to sing “Away in a Manger,” making the incorrect assumption that they would join in the singing. One woman sang, the mother whose memory was failing her. Her family, however, remained quiet. What kept them from singing? Unfamiliarity with the song? Uneasiness with singing in general? Something else?

When leaders of Music that Makes Community gather people for singing, they are wise not to assume that some are “in the know” and others are not. A leader doesn’t preface teaching with “Well, most of you know this, but...” The assumption is instead that all of us have something to learn; we are in this together.

Now is the season when many church or community groups will go caroling. Songbooks are gathered and groups go out in small or larger numbers to sing for others. It is considered a ministry, a way to bring the gift of music and the holiday spirit to those who are homebound or lonely. Yet as I think about this tradition, I wonder if the experience of MMC can refresh this practice?

Rev. Cricket Cooper is Rector at St. Stephen's Parish in Pittsfield, MA. She has been a member of the MMC Board of Trustees since 2014.

Several years ago, I attended Emily Scott’s workshop on paperless music at the Episcopal diocesan convention in Vermont.  The afternoon workshops were followed in the evening by a large, diocesan dinner for a few hundred people, in a ballroom of a local hotel.

In the midst of the din of food service, clattering flatware, jovial conversations and reunions, suddenly a frightened voice pierced the room, calling for a doctor.   Amid the sounds of scuffling and raised voices far in a corner of the large space, most of us were instantly drawn into that horrible place of unknowing.  What had happened?  How serious was it?  Could we help?  What should we do?

Jason Chesnut is a Co-Pastor of The Slate Project, a new worshipping community in Baltimore, MD. He was a participant at MMC in New York City in 2014 and is co-hosting our event in Baltimore November 20-21, 2015.

When I walked into St. Peter's in midtown Manhattan for the Music That Makes Community conference, I honestly had no idea what to think. I mean, I like music. I like singing. But an entire conference on this? It seemed unnecessary. 

A few days later, I was stunned. Not only had I stretched myself like never before at any conference (and I'm a Lutheran pastor, y'all - I go to a lot of conferences); I had also learned a skill that I have used almost every single day since then. Our own #BreakingBread (worship rooted in the ancient and the arts) regularly employs the skills of paperless music in Baltimore.

Jacob Slichter is an MMC presenter, writer and drummer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has been a Board of Trustees member since 2014.


Cricket Cooper lead "Teach Us to Care" at our MMC Presenters' Retreat in September, 2015. 

Various members of the congregational council are milling about just outside the meeting room, talking about the news, their kids, problems at work.  Suddenly, someone bursts into song and invites everyone else to join in.

Scott Weidler is Program Director for Worship and Music at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago, IL. He is a Music that Makes Community Presenter and has been Board of Trustees Member since 2014.


Bishop Claire Schenot Burkat at the Separation Wall in the West Bank.

I was in the West Bank visiting a small village that had been cut off from neighbors and family when the Separation Wall was built through their town. This was shortly after becoming involved with Music that Makes Community. I was privileged to be part of the staff that accompanied the ELCA Conference of Bishops to the holy land. My job was coordinating their worship and leading their singing.  That day in the West Bank, half the group of bishops was in a town hall listening to heart-wrenching stories while the others were at the Wall planting olive trees as a sign of peace and solidarity with the Palestinian people. It was a poignant day for everyone.

The printed schedule (which changed by the hour) said that the two groups would reconvene together for “worship” near a particular gate in the wall (which was chain link fence with barbed wire, at that point) at a certain time.

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.


Here's a video of Sylvia leading I Feel It in My Heart at our MMC Presenters Retreat in September, 2015.

I’m a new rector (that’s Episcopalian for “senior pastor”).  I’ve been in my current congregation for four months now.  We’re a small Episcopal parish (50-75 people on an average Sunday) with an amazing location across the street from the University of New Mexico.

Over my first few months as a new rector, I’ve been profoundly grateful for the ways that my leadership—not just my musical leadership, but my spiritual leadership—has been shaped by the practices of Music that Makes Community.  Improvising, risk-taking, listening, inviting, noticing, making mistakes, sharing leadership, negotiating uncertainty, claiming authority with grace in order to help a community discover it’s voice—this is what pastoral leadership, at its best, is all about.

I’m also curious about how the practice of singing paperless music is already beginning to shape and re-shape our community. It’s definitely a stretch for them.  I mean, transitions are hard, so the community is already a little anxious.  They are anxious, in part, to do things “right” and to please and impress me, their new rector. I know that won’t last, which is why I decided to jump right in and start introducing a few paperless songs in worship right away, before the magic wears off.

Silence is a powerful and often overlooked liturgical element.  

1. Silence provides cognitive space for meditation and reflection.  

2. Silence connects us to the physical space in which we are worshipping by way of allowing us to hear the room’s ambience.

3. Silence connects us with each other, because even in silence with our eyes closed we have an acoustic awareness of everyone else in the room.

4. Silence connects us with what lies on the other side of the church walls.  During silence, might hear the sound of nearby traffic, airplanes overhead, distant lawnmowers, sirens, the sounds of people talking on the street.  Rather than distractions, these can be important points of focus and enhance our sense of our connection to the world.

5. Silence is an easy element to introduce into a meeting or gathering outside of a regular liturgy, and it adds a powerful sense of connection.

This is a video of me leading song I wrote at our Presenters’ Retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in September. I’ve been reading the series of books named after the lines of the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by the British veterinary surgeon James Herriot, and this song came to me one night after reading. I didn’t even know the lines came from a hymn until I shared it at our retreat! Getting to teach my version to our talented group of presenters was a small, joyful moment that never would have been possible for me without Music that Makes Community.

It is a clear April day in Salt Lake City, Utah and the middle school choir is preparing for our big moment during the upcoming graduation ceremony when all the eighth graders will sing “Let It Be” in front of the students, parents and faculty for our K-12 school. We’re singing “Mother Mary comes to me…” when the music teacher comes over to where my friend Jessie and I are standing at the end of a row. She stands there for a minute looking at us while we all keep singing, Jessie and I looking at each other and wondering if we’re in trouble. She stops the singing and says, “Jessie honey, you don’t need to sing, you just move your mouth ok?”

Another middle school day around that time: during morning announcements there’s an invitation to come to a Eucharist service during lunchtime. Its an Episcopal school but services aren’t part of the regular schedule, so this is optional. The school chaplain is a warm, friendly woman who wears her long hair in bangs and barrettes who goes by her last name, Raggs. Sometime that morning I decide to go but don’t mention it to anyone. 

Welcome to the new Music that Makes Community blog, where we will ask the question, “What Did You Notice?” This is a question we ask at every Music that Makes Community event. In many ways it is the foundation of everything we do. At Music that Makes Community, we are working to equip leaders to use the practice of paperless music to build connections in their congregations and communities. The foundation of that work is observation and inquiry, and a spirit of learning imbues every part of our approach.

I’m creating this new forum in order to keep that conversation going in the times between our gatherings and workshops. I’ll write some of the posts myself, and I’ve asked our presenters to contribute as well.

Here are the types of posts you can expect to see in the coming weeks and months:

What we do.
Music that Makes Community workshops have been happening since 2007 (the first workshop was held at St. Gregory of Nyssa in June of that year, and there have been more than thirty events across the US and Canada since then). We’ll use this space to explore our history and tell stories about those experiences and things we’ve learned along the way. We’ll explore the pedagogy we use for our teaching, as well as the theology and philosophies that underpin that teaching.

How we do it.
Anyone who’s tried it knows that learning to lead singing well is work that is never finished. The blog will also be a place you can come to for tips and advice for implementing paperless song leading.

Why we sing this way.
The reason MMC has had such staying power is that many people who attend MMC workshops are deeply moved by the experience. The work we’re doing has touched a deep nerve in the church as musicians, clergy and lay people search for ways to change and adapt to the needs of contemporary society. We’ll tell stories of witness and testimony about the transformations this work has affected in the lives of our participants and leaders.

Who “we” are.
The Music that Makes Community network includes over 1000 people who have participated in or presented at the workshops over the years, and we are a diverse, smart, creative group of people. I’ll be using our blog to post interviews with presenters and participants, as well as inviting guests to post about their work using paperless music in community life.