This short song by psalmist Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is a personal and corporate invitation to stewardship of our lives, our time, and the resources we have been given. Richard teaches the piece through call and echo, lining out each line of the song until the group feels ready to sing it from beginning to end.
The song would be suitable for seasons of discipleship and stewardship. It can be sung a cappella or accompanied by guitar or keyboard.
"To be faithful with what I've been given
To be faithful with who I am
To be faithful with how I am living
I (we) pray to be faithful.
To be faithful with what we've been given
To be faithful with who we are
To be faithful with how we are living
We pray to be faithful."
Richard's music is licensed via CCLI, OneLicense.net and Worldmaking.net. Be sure report use of the piece if you plan to print the text or music for your community.
Sheet music and a recording are available on Richard's website.
Here is a video of the song.
Based on Ephesians 3:20, this tender prayer song by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan invites space for prayer requests to be spoken aloud or sung by the community.
After the refrain is taught and begins to deepen, you can transition to an instrumental vamp (or drone, if sung unaccompanied) during which a leader can invite petitions. When the group is ready to move on, the leader sing the phrase, 'Hear, oh, hear our prayer' to signal a return to the refrain, or 'Amen' to conclude.
"More than we can ask,
More than we can ask,
More than we can ask or imagine.
Hear, oh, hear our prayer. Amen."
Richard's music is licensed via CCLI, OneLicense.net and Worldmaking.net. Be sure report use of the piece if you print the text or music for your community.
Sheet music is available for purchase on Richard's website. The song is also published in the songbook Sing Prayer and Praise.
This song was composed by Amy McCreath, who now serves as the Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, MA. It has become a sort of Music that Makes Community anthem because of its simple but powerful lyrics and easily taught (and harmonized) melody.
Based on a the final line of the poem The Wild Geese by Wendell Berry, it can be shared in a variety of contexts, within and outside faith communities.
"What we need is here."
The Rev. McCreath has given faith communities permission to sing and share the song without restrictions. She simply asks you properly acknowledge the author of the tune and text.
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, our latest songbook published by Augsburg Fortress.
Here's a video of Paul Vasile leading What We Need Is Here at a Music That Makes Community workshop at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
Tar a thighearna is a beautiful Gaelic chant by singer and composer Ruth Cunningham. Translated "Come, Lord, come thou Being," the piece is a powerful invocation and useful for centering/gathering, prayers, and times when a gentle, focused energy is needed.
The text and the melody can be learned through call and echo. Take your time and repeat passages that need extra care, especially those with ornamentation. Invite improvised harmony when the community is ready.
Gaelic:
Tar a thighearna.
Pronunciation: tahr ah hear-nah, tahr-ah-hee
English translation:
Come, Lord, come thou Being.
Ruth has given faith communities permission to sing and share the song without copyright restrictions.
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, our latest songbook published by Augsburg Fortress. It also appeared in Music By Heart, MMC's first collection of paperless music.
Ruth and Ana Hernández recorded the song on Blessed By Light. Here's a link to a recording of Emily Scott teaching the song, then offering suggestions for how to lead it without paper.
Watch Rachel Kroh lead Tar a thighearna at Union Seminary in September 2015:
This is a gorgeous setting of an Orthodox funeral liturgy, written by Daniel Schwandt at our MMC Composers' Gathering in Brattleboro, VT in 2013.
Here's an audio recording of Dan teaching the song in Vermont right after he wrote it.
Here's the sheet music for this song.
Here's a work of art inspired by this song by Rachel Kroh.
Peace, Salaam, Shalom was written by Emma's Revolution (activists and singers Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow) after September 11, 2001 and it quickly became an anthem of the peace movement. It sets the word 'peace' in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, offering a powerful interfaith message that has been shared at protests, religious services, and in other community contexts.
"We were moving from NYC to the Washington DC area over September 11th, 2001. When the only response from the government and the corporate media was “war and retribution,” we wrote “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” and sang it at an impromptu peace march in DC that week. Less than a month later, we led the song at the first peace rally in NYC after 9/11, where over 10,000 people sang with us for the three hour march, all the way from Union Square to Times Square."
Emma's Revolution asks groups, organizations, schools, churches, etc., that use their music to pay a one-time, sliding scale fee of $75-150 for use of the song in perpetuity. See their website for more information.
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, our latest songbook published by Augsburg Fortress. You can also purchase a lead sheet from their website.
Here is a recording of the song by Emma's Revolution:
Here's a clip of AnnaMarie Hoos teaching it at our MMC Leader's Retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in September 2015:
Psalm 141 is commonly used during Vespers or Evening Prayer. This setting by psalmist and singer-songwriter Richard Bruxvoort Colligan invites the community to sing a refrain which alternates with solo verses.
Use call and echo patterns to teach the refrain phrase by phrase. Weave them together when the community is ready and proceed right into the psalm setting without breaking the flow.
Refrain:
Our breath is incense, sweet smell rising.
Our hands are open, lifted up in the evening.
Verse 1:
I call out to you Come and hear me
Give ear to my voice, my God, and quickly. Refrain
Verse 2
Watch the door of my mouth for integrity
Guard my lips and keep my heart from turning. Refrain
Verse 3
Let the elders guide and correct my way
Keep my words and actions true I pray. Refrain
Verse 4
Watch the farmer's plow turn the blessed earth
Bones of death and signs of rising birth. Refrain
Verse 5
You are the earth, I am a seed
Hide me, grow me, love and never leave me. Refrain
Richard's music is licensed via CCLI, OneLicense.net and Worldmaking.net. Be sure report use of the piece if you print the text or music for your community.
Sheet music and a recording are available on Richard's website.
This beautiful, layered chant by Ana Hernández is one of the best-known pieces in the MMC repertoire. The text is adapted from a Chinese mantra to Guan Shi Yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion.
Leaders in the MMC community teach the song differently. Some begin with Part I, then move to Parts II and III. Others reverse the order to great effect. No matter how you teach it, be sure to tend the beautiful dissonance on the word "heart" and keep inviting the community to deeper listening. Additional parts can be improvised and you can also support the voices with guitar or keyboard accompaniment.
Ana suggests using the chant during Communion, in Taize services, underneath prayers, or to shift the energy of a tense situation. It can also be sung in Spanish and French.
Open my heart.
Abre mi corazón.
Ouevre mon coeur.
You can purchase sheet music or a license to use Ana's music from her website.
Sheet music can be found in Music By Heart, MMC's first collection of paperless music. It is also available for purchase on Ana's website.
Here's Ana leading the chant at the 2019 Annual Conference of The Hymn Society in Dallas:
Here's Paul Vasile leading Open My Heart in Houston in 2011:
This new musical setting of a Shaker text is by organist and composer Daniel Schwandt. It was written at a Music that Makes Community Composers Retreat in Brattleboro, VT in 2013. It has been used in many different contexts: as a call to prayer, for Ash Wednesday and during the Lenten season, for services of healing and reconciliation, and even at funerals or graveside services.
The melody has strong call and echo features, and some leaders teach the song this way. Others line it out line by line, adding simple movements to help the group better remember the text.
"Lay me low, where the Lord can find me.
Lay me low, where the Lord can *own me.
Lay me low, where the Lord can bless me.
Lay me low, oh, lay me low."
*MMC leaders frequently substitute 'hold' for 'own.' We find the original word carries baggage painful to many, especially communities of color with direct connection to the American history of chattel slavery. We honor the Shaker tradition from which the song emerges while also seeking to name and heal painful legacies of oppression.
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, published by Augsburg Fortress. Here's an audio recording Dan teaching the song for the very first time.
Below is a teaching video made by Paul Vasile. Notice he substitutes the word 'God' for 'the Lord' to invite a more broadly inclusive spirit. You could also substitute the word 'Love.'
This layered chant commonly used for the service of Compline was written by tunesmith Ana Hernández. Here's a description of the piece from her website:
Guide Us Waking, Guard Us Sleeping is an eight-part circular chant with optional piano accompaniment you may improvise in almost any musical style, from early music to gospel. It's also beautiful with unaccompanied voices. You may also use as few as three parts and still create something beautiful, which makes it perfect as an anthem for small choirs, chanting groups, and improvisors. My friend Julia taught it to her choir and they sang it at the end of rehearsal every Thursday night for years while they put away their books and put on their coats.
"Guide us waking, guard us sleeping,
that awake we walk in love/watch with Christ;
and asleep we may rest in peace."
Find sheet music for purchase on Ana's website. The chant is also published in Voices Found, a supplement to the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal featuring texts and music by, for, and about women.
Hear a performance of Guide Us Waking, Guide Us Sleeping by The Virginia Girls Choir.