Public Worship and the Christian Life: Recent Episodes
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
A podcast produced by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Learn more about our work at https://worship.calvin.edu/
Sarah Johnson and Andrew Wymer, two Free Church scholars in worship and liturgical studies, break new ground in “Worship and Power”, a book edited with other scholars in this tradition, and celebrate what these insights offer for ecumenical conversation and learning around liturgical authority.
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Lisa Allen offers an approach to worship planning that centers on the transformative power of holistic biblical worship.
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Kevin Adams explores the beautiful gifts of framing words for worship—the “conversation of worship”—that are lifegiving and engaging.
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Paul Metzger shares about the formative nature of the church calendar, which emphasizes that Christ in the fullness of time is what shapes us and how we inhabit time.
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Luke Powery encourages preachers and worshipers to embrace the space and place the church provides to ask questions as a faithful way of Christian discipleship and engaging with God.
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Sarah Travis explores how Christian worship, through its rhythm of Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending, both unsettles us and equips us to do the work of conciliation and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
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For more than 25 years, Ron Man has been teaching on the biblical foundations of worship. He gathers up that learning in his book “Let Us Draw Near”, a testimony to the power of scripture to guide pastors and worshipers in our calling to be worshipers of God.
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In this episode, artistic director Mark Doerries tells the emerging story of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, now ten years old, and the formative process and unifying vision the choir has built as they learn what it means to sing the sacred story of the church across time and space.
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In this episode, Pastor Lamar Hardwick reminds us that as many worshiping communities seek to become more diverse, celebrating and appreciating the beauty of all types of minds and bodies is an important theme in the life of the church.
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In this episode, worship planner and musician Katie Ritsema-Roelofs shares about the importance of thoughtful and intentional ways the whole congregation can join in the formational work of intergenerational, corporate worship.
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In this episode, Christian educator Dr. La Verne Tolbert shares her hopes and desires for renewed connections between parents and the church in the formative work of raising children in the faith and including children in the worship life of the church.
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Practical theologian Sarah Frances Farmer offers four promising pathways for African American youth to strengthen capacity for hope infused with courage in the life of the church and community.
Practical theologian Ben Conner encourages and challenges congregations and pastors to reorient ministry with youth to fully include and amplifiy the witness of adolescents with developmental disabilities.
Practical theologian Angela Williams Gorrell shares how experiencing life's challenges and sorrows is also an opportunity to share in its joy.
In this episode, Montague Williams shares about the opportunities churches have to support and nurture young people of color as they navigate the joys and complexities of their lives in the 21st century.
In this episode, Richelle B. White shares her passion for drawing from the wisdom of the Bible along with Black history, Black culture, and Black music as rich, relevant, and necessary sources in nurturing in faith the lives of Black youth.
In this episode, Patrick Reyes shares his story of growing up in borderlands where he cried out to survive, found guideposts in familia and community, remained present in suffering, and found pathways in and through community to a calling from God to life.
In this episode, Andy Root explores how narrative and joy spark the imagination and provide a framework to minister in Christ and for young people in deeply formative ways.
In this episode, Almeda M. Wright shares about her research that explores the spiritual lives of African American youth and points to a complex picture of both the fragmentation and integration in their spiritual lives as they learn to balance experiences of suffering while persisting along pathways to life more abundantly in Christ.
In this episode, Amanda Drury talks about the integral role testimony plays in the worshiping community, especially as young people learn how to narrate their faith in a variety of spaces and ways and join the intergenerational faith community in long-term Christian living.
In this episode, Najla Kassab, ordained minister in the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and president of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, speaks with Maria Cornou about the fear and sadness that COVID-19 brought to the Lebanon and the healing power of God's grace through worship and new ways of seeing injustice and being community for Christians in the Middle East.
In this episode, Palestinian Christian, professor, and pastor Munther Isaac shares with John Witvliet how the use of technology brought worship into homes and opened up new possibilities for services, Bible studies, and more during the during COVID-19 crisis for the worshiping community of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
In this episode, pastor and church planter Arbin Pokharel talks with Maria Cornou about the vibrancy of the body of Christ in Nepal--land of Hinduism, birthplace of Buddha, and a caste system society--as they draw from the well of grace and practice their Christian faith so everyone can flourish.
In this episode, pastor-theologians Angelique and Marnus Havenga share with Maria Cornou about what they are learning about pastoring and serving the community as a whole in the Dutch Reformed Church, located in city-center of Stellenbosch, one of the most unequal towns in the country of South Africa.
In this episode, Philip McKinley, co-founder of Discovery Gospel Choir, an intercultural ensemble that reflects the new-found cultural and ethnic diversity in Ireland, shares with Maria Cornou how the pandemic created new opportunities for unity and blessing among the people of Ireland and beyond in unimagined ways.
In this episode, Yvette Lau, worship leader and chief executive of Anabas Ministry for worship renewal based in Hong Kong, shares with Maria Cornou about leading worship and the wisdom and discerning spirit that is needed to shape worship and pastor God's people during these urgent times.
In this episode, father and son Valdir Steuernagel and Marcell Silva Steuernagel share with Maria Cornou about the witness, embodiment, and community of the Lutheran church in south Brazil during the COVID-19 crisis. This conversation was recorded in the fall of 2020 as part of a global worship course Prof. Cornou taught at Calvin Theological Seminary.
Methodist School of Music aims to equip and edify worshipers and the church through music and the arts. Staff members Judith Laoyan-Mosomos and Justin Chan talk with Maria Cornou, an associate director at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, about their worshiping communities and practices and issues highlighted in COVID-19.
Mitri Raheb is a theologian, public figure, widely published author, and—for 30 years—senior pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. In this episode, Rev. Raheb talks with John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the worshiping community in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus.
Chaplain and youth advocate Khristi Lauren Adams talks about her new book "Parable of the Brown Girl" and how we all can encourage and empower the sacred lives of girls of color.
Fleming Rutledge talks about her 2015 book "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ," a life-long work which encourages preachers to proclaim the full gospel message: God is at work, helping us listen for Christ's living voice, enabling us to believe and hope in the midst of pain and suffering.
Pastor and songwriter Glenn Packiam shares about Christian hope in contemporary worship.
Justo Gonzáles takes us into his book "The Mestizo Augustine," which offers a fresh look at the life of Augustine of Hippo, son of an African mother and a Roman father. How does Augustine deal with this mestizo identity in his life and his theology, and what insights does that provide for us today?
Juana Bordas talks about the power of leadership when each person, culture and community can contribute equally and show respect for all, and how leaders who embrace gratitude and forgiveness offer their communities hope for the future.
Deanna Thompson of St. Olaf College talks about her 2016 book "The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World," which was written from her experience of living with cancer and now takes on additional meaning in our COVID-shaped world.
President of Union Presbyterian Seminary and New Testament scholar Brian K. Blount talks about cultivating an apocalyptic perspective and what it means to preach the resurrection all year long.
Western Theological Seminary professor David Stubbs talks about the multiplicity of meanings of the Eucharist and what it means to bring our whole selves to the Lord's table.
Célestin Musekura talks about the humanizing and justice-focused work of forgiveness, for individuals, communities and Christian worship.
Catherine Gunsalus González shares about her book "Resources in the Ancient Church for Today's Worship" which celebrates the riches of going back in time to enrich the practices of worship today.
Carla Zastrow, teacher at Zeeland Christian School, talks about how 80 seventh graders and their teachers engaged the Biblical psalms during the COVID-19 crisis.
David M. Bailey, executive director of Arrabon, an organization dedicated to equipping and empowering organizations for reconciliation, talks with John Witvliet about righteous anger that directs people on a path of formation and Christian discipleship.
Fuller Theological Seminary professor Vince Bantu talks around his passion of bringing together cultural identity and faith and the timely reminder that Christianity has always been a global religion.
Rich Villodas, lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a multiracial church in one of the most diverse zip codes in the US--Queens, New York--talks about what it means to be deeply formed in Christ.