Episode 221: Community of Christ Sings at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley California

Show Notes
Transcript

Did you know that our hymnal, Community of Christ Sings, is used as a textbook at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley? Listen in as Carla interviews Reverend Daniel Damon and Reverend Dr. Nancy Hall about their class, A Cry for Justice in Hymnody. They discuss some of the unique features of Community of Christ Sings, their favorite songs-- including several that Dan wrote that are in CCS, as well as the importance of hymns in faith communities.

Check out the website Nancy and Dan mentioned here.

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Intro and Outro music used with permission:

“For Everyone Born,” Community of Christ Sings #285. Music © 2006 Brian Mann, admin. General Board of Global Ministries t/a GBGMusik, 458 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30308. copyright@umcmission.org

All music for this episode was performed by Dr. Jan Kraybill, and produced by Chad Godfrey.

NOTE: The series that make up the Project Zion Podcast explore the unique spiritual and theological gifts Community of Christ offers for today's world. Although Project Zion Podcast is a Ministry of Community of Christ. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those speaking and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Community of Christ.

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[inaudible].

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Welcome to the Project Zion podcast.

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This podcast explores the unique spiritual and theological gifts Community of Christ offers for today's world.

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[inaudible]

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Hello and welcome to the Project Zion podcast.

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I'm your host, Carla Long and I'm so excited to be here with our guests today.

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I've never met them face to face, but I already feel like I know so much about them.

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They are the Reverend Daniel Damon and the Reverend Dr.

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Nancy Hall, so Dan and Nancy.

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Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Hi Carla.

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Hello!

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Yeah, so I first heard about the two of you very recently when I heard that you use our hymnal, our sweet little Community of Christ Sings, as a basis for one of your classes that you're teaching.

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And I have to tell you, I was floored.

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I mean, I know we have an awesome hymnal.

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It's super awesome.

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I know they worked for like seven years on it, but I never thought that it might be used as a text in a university class.

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So I'm super excited to hear more about that and I really can't wait.

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But before we jump into that, I would love for you to take a minute or two and introduce yourselves.

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So Dan, Nancy, I don't know who wants to go first, but let's hear about who you are, where you live, what you do, all that good stuff.

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Nancy, would you go first?

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So I'd be glad to.

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So I'm Nancy and I just completed a 30 years as a professor at American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley where I also live.

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I am a pastor.

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I've been pastor of First Baptist Church of Berkeley for 10 years, although I'm a part of that church for about 35 years.

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I am a graduate of ABSW class of 1980.

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So I've spent many, many years of my life directly associated with the seminary and have been minister of music for 40 some years.

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My passion is hymnody.

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That goes all the way back to being a very young person.

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I grew up in the Lutheran church, so I was steeped in the great German corrals and some of the English hymns and early American hymns.

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So that's just followed me through my entire life and has become absolutely my favorite subject for and sharing and worship planning.

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So my one sentence bio is I'm a United Methodist pastor, a hymn writer and a jazz pianist.

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I have a degree in music from Greenville College in Southern Illinois, a Free Methodist Christian Liberal Arts school and voice was my performance area.

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I wasn't, I don't have any classical background in piano, so that wasn't a path that was open to me, but I've always played you know, 19th Century Gospel Hymns and I learned to improvise all the piano players in the Evangelical Free Church in Rapid City, added notes.

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We didn't know the word improvisation, but we c alled it adding notes.

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And I came out to the Bay Area from the black hills of South Dakota and, eventually was able to find work playing the piano on Gary Street and sing along piano bar called the curtain call.

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And I w orked nine t il two in the morning and learned a lot of songs, l earn t o transpose, started t o improvise.

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And then I went to Pacific School of religion in Berkeley felt the call to become a minister and p ut myself through school t here playing the piano and some of the nicer hotels and restaurants doing private parties and stuff.

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That's me in a nutshell.

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Well, one of the things that really drew me to this podcast is that I lived in California for six years, from 2005 to 2011.

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And I finished seminary during that time and I was just drawn to the Graduate Theological Union and actually the Pacific School of re Pacific School of Religion.

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And I don't know if it was because you had a quidditch team or what, but I was really, I couldn't afford it.So that was a problem.

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But I, I did use, make excellent use of your library while I was in seminary.

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So I felt every time I walked on campus I felt like extra, extra cool.

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So I already think that you two are extra, extra cool for teaching there.

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That's amazing.

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I'm, I mean, I love how you yeah, I just, I love everything about it.

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So Berkeley's one of my favorite places on the planet.

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I'm, I'm a little jealous, I must admit.

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So I, I am really even curious how, how did you even hear about Community of Christ sings if neither one of you are from or you know, no, about us necessarily.

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We're kind of a small denomination.

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How did you even hear about this hymnal?

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Well members of your committee came to the Hymn Society conferences for years and they seem to be on the lookout for a new hymns and a h ymn w riters.

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So I was friendly to them.

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I found them to be very nice folks.

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You know, I didn't try to promote my material exactly, but I was friendly to them and let them know I was glad they were part of the Hymn Society.

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Well I don't think our friendly listeners, our friendly listeners might know this or not, but Dan you actually have, I just counted them 18 hymns in our hymnal and he has written some of community Christ's what I would say favorites.

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One is called,"I Have Called You By Your Name." It's numner 636 in Community of Christ Sings.

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Two Easters ago we sang one of your hymns,"Woman Weeping in the Garden" and it had a profound effect on the congregation and also your hymn,"Come Now You Hungry" was featured at our World Conference in 2019 in this year, 2019 was featured and we sang it every day, I think at our World Conference where 5,000 people from all over the world saying it.

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So I think it's also become a bit of a favorite.

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So Dan, I know now why you know, what Community of Christ things is because you are featured prominently in it.

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And I'm so grateful for your talent.

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Thank you.

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My story is a little different with the hymnal, although very much connected.

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I was trying to figure out this afternoon, which a Hymn Society conference, it was since the CCS was published in 2013.

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It was either that summer or summer of 2014 so the hymnal was introduced and featured at the conference.

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And usually what that means is through the generosity of the denomination or the publisher everyone who comes to the hymnals features section gets a copy of the hymnal for free, which I always love receiving.

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And we sang through, I think it was led by probably Jan Kraybill and Jane Gardner, maybe a third person I don't quite recall.

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So we each had a hymnal in our hand and they took us through some of the highlights and things about the hymnal that w ere unique.

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And I was so impressed.

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I felt i t was one of the best hymnals I h ad ever seen.

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And ever since then, my husband and I have been kind of evangelists for the hymnal.

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We talk to people about it and then we always show them the topical index.

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That's one of our favorite parts.

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And we start reading off all the topics and people are going, really, you're kidding.

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Really?

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There's hymns about that and there's hymns about this and it's, it's really enjoyable to share.

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That's such a hymnal could exist.

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It focuses on so many topics we're generally not used to seeing in a, in a Christian hymnal.

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So the other thing that has intrigued me as I, the idea of a core repertoire for your denomination, we're very impressed by that and excited about it.

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So those are just two things.

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Aside from the wonderful collection of hymns that I have been impressed by

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Nancy, you're going to make me cry.

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That is, that's very, very kind of you.

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And for our listeners who might not know, do you want to explain what the core repertoire means?

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This is a group of hymns.

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It's a, I think it's about two pages long.

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Let's see if I can find it here so I can speak intelligently about this.

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So there's an in index.

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Yes.

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It starts with non-english language hymns and yes, the core repertoire 824, however many hymns that long.

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Hw long the list is.

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I don't know, maybe 60 or more.

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And my understanding from the way it was explained to us is that your committee, knowing the life of your denomination so well and your practices and habits, what you love and what you're exploring is a denomination shows this group of humans to say this is a good place to start for anyCommunity of Christ congregation, learn these hymns and, and embody these hymns and, and you will know more about who we are and who you hope to be by engaging in this core repertoire.

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That's my been my impression.

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That's,

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and I'm serious.

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Yeah.

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How do I get it right.

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You nailed it.

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That's exactly it.

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Oh, good.

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Good.

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Yeah.

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And so ever since I discovered that and learned about it, I've been I have plans to work with at least a couple of churches on this idea of core repertoire.

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I haven't accomplished it yet, but I'm keeping it definitely lively.

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In some of the work I do with congregations.

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So that was, I've never seen that before.

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And I thought that was genius.

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Well they did work on it for seven years.

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So I'm actually pretty intrigued by this idea of the topical index.

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I assumed that most hymnals had a topical index.

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That's not true?

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Or if we just have a lot more.

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They do.

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O h,

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You have so many more topics, wouldn't you say?

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So Dan?

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Yeah, they, they, and they have a lot of topics that are not covered in other hymnals.

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Exactly.

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For instance, I'm just looking at the first page.

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I have never in my life seen hymnal that h ad a topic called alienation.

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I mean, my goodness.

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Right.

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Also aging is a new topic in our hymnals.

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The one right above.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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You two are giving me a new found appreciation for the seminar and I didn't think that was cool.

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So, Gosh, okay.

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Well I don't mean, I don't really mean for this to be just like your hymnal.

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So awesome thing.

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But I do want to hear more about your class and, and why, in your words, why is it important to discuss hymns, how do they affect people?

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Why are you singing about justice and everything so important?

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Dan, why don't you start with that one?

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Well way back in 2010, the Hymn Society met in Birmingham, Alabama and, we were I forget what the scene was exactly, but definitely justice.

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And I was asked to do a plenary lecture there, which I call, The Cry for Justice in hymnody and we, um, it occurred to me at the time that we need a justice for creation, for children, for the elderly, for women for LGBTQIA community justice for people with disabilities, justice for the poor and oppressed and for people of other faith traditions.

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And so I did a lecture where I featured hymns that address these various things.

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A couple of mine made it into that lecture, but mainly I was featuring other other writers and I've continued to write on those justice themes.

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And, and also some others that I didn't think about way back in 2010, but we've, we've ended up using that lecture as the basis for the coursecalled, A Cry for Justice in Hymnody and we've, we've taught it twice now I think.

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Well, you know, I was thinking about it after I heard about your class, part of me was like, is it, I mean, can you teach a whole class simply on hymns?

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And then I thought more about it and realize that hymns are probably a good quarter of the time that we spend together.

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We spend at least a quarter of that time singing together if not more.

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And so of course it's important.

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Of course we should talk about it.

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Of course we should think about the message behind the hymns and what we are saying and singing together.

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So I, I appreciate you saying that very much.

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Nancy, what about you?

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Well, I think that singing hymns is immensely important.

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Actually for me, and I have no problem saying this, it's the most important thing we do in worship.

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Now.

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There's many important things we do.

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We pray, we hear the word and have it proclaimed usually by one voice, a preacher through prayer.

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We share our joys and concerns are laments or praises we give.

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We have the opportunity and the privilege of giving to go back to God and to the community.

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But for me, the basis of worship and where I always start is the hymns themselves.

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So my process of planning, worship week by week is first I find out what the scriptures are going to be depending on who the preacher is, what are they going to focus on.

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We use a Psalm every single Sunday.

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And with those in mind, then the very next thing I turned to is choosing what hymns and songs the congregational saying.

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So I don't, you know, wait for a sermon to get that inspiration.

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I don't look and see what haven't we sung there, you know, in the last few months or something like that.

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The hymns that I choose and what I feel so passionate about is hymns that will speak to the theme of the morning or sometimes themes.

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Maybe there's a hymn of praise at the beginning that doesn't necessarily connect directly with the sermon, but a, it will lead us into that part of worship.

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And we should always leave with some sense of singing about commitment to going out to door and doing justice and caring for others.

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So I believe that what we sing is what we embody.

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The words become a part of us.

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And in a way, even though I'm no longer a creedal person, it's almost like the hymns are reciting a creed.

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It, the hymns at their best, help us understand where our beliefs lie.

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And even more important is I think that hymns and songs are a call to action.

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And it takes time.

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In my 10 years as a pastor, we've gone from, you know, good hymns singing and good choices to a much, much deeper engagement with hymns in our congregation where people really notice the words, they now come expecting the hymns to interact with the scriptures, the preached word, and everything else we do in worship.

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So if justice is at the basis of that, I really do believe that we are by embodying hymns about justice along with other themes.

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We are equipping ourselves to move back out into the congregation after worship.

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Oh, excuse me, into the community after worship and live what we sing.

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I love that.

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And you have brought me back to a little bit of a moment of shame that I had actually last Sunday because I was planning in presiding and I didn't have my preacher, he, he couldn't come.

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So at the last moment I had to try and figure out a service about a preacher and all that stuff and I, I chose this, hymn that was suggested in our worship helps our, yeah.

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And I realized there was like this one line that really, really bothers me and I kinda hate, but I went ahead and chose it anyway.

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And I told the congregation, there's one line in here that I really hate to see if you can figure out which one it is.

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Cause we're all pretty like we're pretty loosey goosey congregation.

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We have a lot of fun.

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And at the end of it, for the first time that ever people started talking up about that or speaking up about the hymn and saying, well, I didn't like this line.

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Well I didn't like this and I realize this is probably a hymn that we should sing anymore in our congregation.

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It's number 66,"Speak Oh Lord", if you, I dunno, I don't know if you remembered or not, but there's a, there was quite a few people who were like, I don't, there's a lot of lines in here that I don't agree with and don't resonate with me.

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So actually I think it was a really good thing because people, after I said there's a line in here I don't like, I think people started really paying attention more so to the words anyway.

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You gave them, you gave them permission to do that.

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You kind of, in a way you kind of opened Pandora's Box.

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But I think in a good way, Well maybe not.

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We'll see.

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We'll see what happens later.

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Um, the line, I did not like talks about full obedience that we're just drives me insane.

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So you know, especially here in Utah, they talked about obedience a lot.

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Yeah, that's why, that's why the old hymn, Tust and Obey" is the top of my hit list.

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Oh, I'm cringing.

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I'm Cringing.

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So I'm looking through your syllabus.

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They were kind enough to send me their syllabus and it looks like one of the assignments that you give your students is they have to write an original hymn and they have to write an original music setting for that hymn and write a sermon that addresses one of the topics.

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So have you gotten some really good hymns?

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(inaudible).

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Oh, what's that?

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You do one or the other, one of three.

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Have you gotten some really good ones back?

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Yeah, we did.

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We tried to, you know, hear parts of a sermon in class or sing the songs in class.

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Some in some cases the student was able to play and sing the piece.

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In one case, a student saying it into my voicemail and I wrote it out harmonize the melody and brought it in and we sang it in class.

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I also in your syllabus, you, you actually have the read through every hymn in our hymnal.

00:20:33.010 --> 00:20:37.450
It looks like they have to read the hymnal 1 through 50, the first class and 51 through 100.

00:20:38.049 --> 00:20:39.519
So they read through all of them.

00:20:39.730 --> 00:20:44.440
And then do you, what, can you walk me through a typical class and what it would sound like and be like?

00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:59.960
Usually we gather when it's, um, we teach from a five to 6:30 PM kind of in between other times that the GTU holds courses.

00:21:00.089 --> 00:21:07.799
And that my seminary where we are physically located for the class starts evening classes a little after seven.

00:21:08.069 --> 00:21:15.990
So we slip in there with a 90 minute class that may allow students to take both our class and then go onto an evening class.

00:21:15.570 --> 00:21:22.019
So the first thing is Dan will sit down at the piano and start playing music.

00:21:22.049 --> 00:21:34.380
It may be familiar, it may be a little unfamiliar, maybe it's usually sacred, but it might be more on the secular side and that kind of calms everyone down, brings everyone to attention.

00:21:34.980 --> 00:21:54.299
And then, let's see, we've done it a little differently in the two semesters that we've, we've taught it, but we will collect their weekly 500 word essay and the students write one every week on a hymn text that they choose to write about.

00:21:54.569 --> 00:22:02.519
It can be on the topic of the day or can be something they may have come across in Community of Christ sings.

00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:14.910
We also begin the semester thoroughly briefing them on hymnary.org which h as an incredible online resource and a Hope Hymns Online and some other resources.

00:22:15.150 --> 00:22:20.759
So they actually can range kind of far and wide on where they look for the h ymn that they write on.

00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:33.569
And we usually will choose one of those brief papers to read a little bit from if we feel we have the time, we might have the student read at least some of the paper.

00:22:34.079 --> 00:22:36.779
And then let's see, what do we do next?

00:22:37.470 --> 00:22:48.329
I think Dan, this time around, we t urn to you at that point in each class and you would give a mini lecture on the topic for the day.

00:22:48.330 --> 00:23:01.440
So if it was a cry for justice, for the environment or a cry for justice, for racial equality, whatever the topic might be, you would give us a little beginning lecture on that.

00:23:01.950 --> 00:23:05.009
And then from there, what did we do next, Dan?

00:23:05.599 --> 00:23:07.759
Well, we've tried to sing some songs.

00:23:07.760 --> 00:23:22.730
We asked them if they found any songs on the topic and, and either I have some we were using my most recent hymn collection called,"My Child As a Flower" where I've written a lot of justice oriented hymns.

00:23:22.730 --> 00:23:35.059
So sometimes we'd find something out of there sometimes from Community of Christ Sings,, but we would, we would spend the rest of the time singing hymns on the topic of the day.

00:23:36.509 --> 00:23:36.960
Right.

00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:39.930
And always with some commentary in between.

00:23:40.859 --> 00:23:45.799
As the semester goes on, the students get, get bolder and expressing opinions.

00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:47.900
Kind of like your congregation.

00:23:48.250 --> 00:23:55.069
Robin, uh, Carla, I mean, I'm sorry, I was staring at the screen and said, Robin, but I know you're Carla.

00:23:56.930 --> 00:23:57.140
That's okay!

00:23:56.930 --> 00:23:57.140
Y up.

00:23:56.930 --> 00:24:04.789
And they begin to be more willing to say things like, you know, this hymn really bothers me.

00:24:05.359 --> 00:24:08.329
And then we'll have a brief discussion about that.

00:24:08.330 --> 00:24:15.859
And others might chime in or someone might say, Oh Gosh, that reminds me of hymn that I wish I'd brought for us to sing.

00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:22.750
And they might talk about that a little bit o r about an experience in their congregation or in their life related to the hymns.

00:24:22.750 --> 00:24:35.630
So all along we're gathering experiences and opinions of the students and also of Dan and myself about how we feel about the words and the, and the music.

00:24:35.630 --> 00:24:37.970
We talk about how the words and music go together.

00:24:38.930 --> 00:24:59.839
And since Dan is one of the, the rare writers that writes both his words and his music I would say those are always pretty well integrated, but sometimes we'll run across the hymn you know, maybe even in the Community of Christ, although I couldn't name one and they say, you know, I think there could be a better tune for that.

00:25:00.230 --> 00:25:07.309
So those are the kinds of things then we discuss usually for the rest of the class session cause 90 minutes goes by very fast.

00:25:07.730 --> 00:25:09.230
And yeah.

00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:13.009
Anything else Dan, that w e tended to do in class?

00:25:13.079 --> 00:25:17.849
The question could you use this hymn in your church?

00:25:18.390 --> 00:25:23.039
And sometimes they would say they liked the hymn, but they couldn't use it in their church.

00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:33.299
Maybe it's too radical, too far out on a theological limb of some kind or, you know, they, they, they'll keep it in, in their bag of tricks.

00:25:33.300 --> 00:25:39.630
But in their current setting, they don't feel like they'd be able to haul it out and, and use it.

00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:47.789
And that's always an interesting discussion because our, uh, this last semester we had seven students.

00:25:47.910 --> 00:25:58.200
Our classes don't tend to be very big, maybe seven to 10, but within those, that small number of students is incredible diversity in every way you can think about it.

00:25:58.201 --> 00:26:10.410
So the students learn so much from each other about their settings, their churches, denominations, the churches, practices, what kind of music they have.

00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.339
All of those things end up getting shared over the semesters time.

00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:18.309
We talk about where in the, in the worship service.

00:26:18.490 --> 00:26:19.630
Would this hymn work?

00:26:19.631 --> 00:26:23.349
Is it an opening hymn and closing hymn something in the middle?

00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:34.930
If it's a hymn human human trafficking, which I have one of those in my, my new collection, when human life is bought and sold, it's like, is that a general use hyn?

00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:35.500
No.

00:26:35.619 --> 00:26:48.900
You know, if you're going to actually address the theme of human trafficking in the worship service in your sermon or in the prayers or something, then maybe you've got an opportunity to use that.

00:26:49.589 --> 00:26:52.140
Shirley Murray has a hymn a on that topic.

00:26:52.141 --> 00:26:53.609
There's only two that I know of.

00:26:53.910 --> 00:27:02.190
I mean, it's probably something you'll never bring up in your church, but it's, it's one of the great pains of human life.

00:27:01.711 --> 00:27:11.670
And maybe it, if you have a song to sing about it, it can open a doorway into a difficult topic.

00:27:13.250 --> 00:27:14.359
Oh, absolutely.

00:27:15.289 --> 00:27:23.630
You've reminded me of something, but before I say that, I just want to say that your class sounds like the most fun class of any class I've ever taken in my entire life.

00:27:23.930 --> 00:27:30.559
I can't imagine like getting to go to class and get credit for singing and talking about hymns.

00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:31.640
That is so cool.

00:27:31.819 --> 00:27:33.859
It's so cool.

00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:34.650
It's fun.

00:27:35.369 --> 00:27:37.559
And I'll tell you, I really believe in this.

00:27:37.560 --> 00:27:47.849
In all my years of teaching seminary, graduate level classes, theological education is generally pretty sober, pretty demanding.

00:27:48.299 --> 00:27:57.180
You're studying theology and history, ethics, biblical studies, Pastoral Care, lots of, you know, very serious subjects.

00:27:58.259 --> 00:28:01.410
I don't make any apologies for this class at all.

00:28:01.980 --> 00:28:09.480
In terms of how important it is, it is fun and it is, I will even say easy.

00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:18.089
Mainly show up, participate, do the assignments and you're probably going to be guaranteed a, a good grade at the end.

00:28:18.420 --> 00:28:23.309
But to me it is every bit as important as any other class students take.

00:28:23.819 --> 00:28:33.599
And I've had to, you know, kind of do a few rounds about that with colleagues at times t hat you know, oh, well, you know, this is just t o hymn, same class.

00:28:33.900 --> 00:28:35.400
No, not at all.

00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:45.119
This is a class where we study one of the most significant and important things that every church does every Sunday across the globe.

00:28:45.299 --> 00:28:50.700
So excuse me, but I make no apologies for my class.

00:28:51.259 --> 00:28:51.559
Nancy.

00:28:51.259 --> 00:28:52.400
Go get'em.

00:28:52.490 --> 00:29:00.740
You Go! What you reminded me of Dan when you were talking about t he, y our human trafficking hymn.

00:29:01.549 --> 00:29:04.400
It was, I d on't k now if it was last year, the year before.

00:29:04.401 --> 00:29:06.259
I'm really sad that I can't remember.

00:29:06.260 --> 00:29:19.730
But there was a shooting in Florida, t he Parkland shooting in Florida in a high school and the high school students had had enough and they were speaking out and they were really being vocal about this is not good enough.

00:29:20.210 --> 00:29:27.380
And so that Sunday that really touched the, the planner and the presider, which was myself and a, a good friend of mine.

00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:39.740
And we decided, actually Dan, I didn't know it was your h ead at the time, but we decided to sing your hymn,"Strong, Gentle Children" for to honor what those kids were doing.

00:29:40.309 --> 00:29:53.440
And, and there was not a dry eye in the place after we were done because we really wanted to seeing our our appreciation for them and our support for them.

00:29:53.859 --> 00:29:55.359
So i t, it meant a lot.

00:29:56.529 --> 00:29:59.529
Yeah, that's one of my favorites from my first collection.

00:30:01.589 --> 00:30:02.910
It's a beautiful hymn.

00:30:02.970 --> 00:30:04.109
It's beautiful.

00:30:05.099 --> 00:30:07.349
So your class sounds incredible.

00:30:07.351 --> 00:30:08.400
It sounds super fun.

00:30:08.010 --> 00:30:11.970
And it sounds like something that is desperately needed.

00:30:12.220 --> 00:30:20.099
For instance, when I'm planning a service, there are times when I just feel a little bit lost on what hymns to choose.

00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:29.549
And I think that having a class like this would give me some focus and would help me to figure out exactly where I'm trying to go and exactly where I want to be.

00:30:29.579 --> 00:30:33.150
So I, I appreciate the idea of your class very, very much.

00:30:34.289 --> 00:30:43.680
Well Carla, I know you're supposed to ask the questions, but I was wondering, have you read through your hymnal, read the texts of your hymnal?

00:30:45.220 --> 00:30:46.420
That's a really good question.

00:30:46.421 --> 00:30:50.349
And I've read through probably three quarters of it, but I don't think I've read through all of it.

00:30:50.619 --> 00:30:54.400
A lot of people have in our congregation, but I haven't, go ahead.

00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:55.500
Yeah.

00:30:55.680 --> 00:31:12.000
So I mean, I, I think one of the things we try to do in our classes just give our students exposure to a lot of hymns and it, you know, cause they're g oing t o have to be choosing hymns week after week after week for their entire career.

00:31:12.390 --> 00:31:16.740
And a lot of them, y ou k now, haven't read the Bible and they definitely haven't read the hymnal.

00:31:19.869 --> 00:31:21.039
That's very true.

00:31:21.040 --> 00:31:25.839
And I feel like I'm gonna like sit down tonight and read the rest of the hymnal.

00:31:28.109 --> 00:31:31.390
Um, so back to me asking you questions.

00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:35.890
Do you, do each of you have a favorite and Community of Christ Sings?

00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:40.490
I do.

00:31:40.579 --> 00:31:45.079
I looked at the question, you know, and thought about it before this evening.

00:31:45.799 --> 00:31:54.470
It's full, chock full of fantastic hymns, some of which I knew ahead of time and others, which I've never seen before, which is a total delight.

00:31:54.020 --> 00:31:57.019
But two favorites so far.

00:31:57.020 --> 00:32:01.180
The first one is, Till All the Jails Are Empty." Oh, that's a good one.

00:32:02.049 --> 00:32:07.359
I've found that when people sing this hymn for the first time, they are just blown away.

00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:11.319
They, they can hardly speak after singing it.

00:32:11.799 --> 00:32:13.390
It's so powerful.

00:32:13.750 --> 00:32:22.480
The words of course by Carl Daw and then the, the powerful music of the tune that it's set to in Community to Christ's Sings, Work To Do.

00:32:22.900 --> 00:32:26.049
And then Dan's excellent arrangement.

00:32:26.670 --> 00:32:28.809
It was just a perfect match for the words.

00:32:29.079 --> 00:32:36.400
So that one is such a call to action without even having to say, now here's a hymn that's a call to action.

00:32:36.401 --> 00:32:38.890
I mean, everyone knows it as they sing it.

00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:40.140
Well, okay.

00:32:40.141 --> 00:32:44.190
So I'll just comment on that particular one,"Till All the Jails are Empty".

00:32:44.299 --> 00:32:52.920
I did that arrangement and self-defense because I the actual composition by John Bell was a little too hard for me to play.

00:32:53.160 --> 00:32:55.980
It's got these six times, note runs in it and stuff.

00:32:56.519 --> 00:33:05.490
And so I felt like I needed a, I was, I was asked to play it, I think it was at Saint Olaf, but it was for the Hymn Society conference one year.

00:33:06.029 --> 00:33:12.150
And so I worked with my teacher on a piano arrangement of it that I could play.

00:33:13.019 --> 00:33:14.130
So that's what I did.

00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:15.450
Well, thank God you did.

00:33:15.451 --> 00:33:16.410
It's amazing.

00:33:16.529 --> 00:33:17.099
Thank God.

00:33:17.109 --> 00:33:19.380
Yeah, great story.

00:33:19.650 --> 00:33:20.099
Yeah.

00:33:20.869 --> 00:33:37.920
I'm my second favorite and then Dan can respond is a"Creator of The Intertwined" by our friend Jackie Jones and I, it's one of the very best intefaith hymns that I know I can't manage to sing the last line.

00:33:38.369 --> 00:33:45.059
"Your voice speaks many languages, just one of them is mine" without weeping every single time.

00:33:46.049 --> 00:34:01.710
It's so powerful and it's such a hymn of universal love and the call to understanding and embracing each other and putting aside our differences and just basking in our differences really.

00:34:01.769 --> 00:34:06.359
And what we, what we can teach each other if we will just open up.

00:34:06.361 --> 00:34:09.989
So those are my two favorites of many favorites.

00:34:12.250 --> 00:34:19.340
I have a few, but just mentioned too,"Sometimes We Wait Expecting God" is on 304.

00:34:19.791 --> 00:34:27.619
It's actually a facing page with,"Till All the Jails are Empty." Sometimes we wait expecting God to feed the hungry from above.

00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:32.210
But bread is baked each day and shared by people who are moved by love.

00:34:32.809 --> 00:34:34.699
And then there's four stanzas.

00:34:34.701 --> 00:34:39.320
It's a four part setting with chord symbols.

00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:53.960
So you could, you could do you know, with the choir and a band, I try to write in that style because a lot of our conferences, you know, use bass and guitar and drums as well as you know, choir and so on.

00:34:55.309 --> 00:35:05.239
I also like"Joseph, Son of an Ancient King." We, we've got, have a lot of Mary hymns but not too much that focuses on Joseph.

00:35:05.809 --> 00:35:15.650
And I went through the New Testament and found every scripture that referred to Joseph and included all those in that text.

00:35:16.429 --> 00:35:24.289
The tune is kind of like a, a folk tune and I d unno, I just, it's a personal favorite.

00:35:26.039 --> 00:35:26.400
Thank you.

00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:33.750
On the first one, I'm looking at three Oh four and going, oh my God, that's a perfect hymn for this Sunday, which I'm in the midst of planning.

00:35:34.289 --> 00:35:35.010
Fantastic.

00:35:36.059 --> 00:35:43.960
The lectionary reading a Luke 14, the story of the, that goes when you were invited by someone to a wedding banquet.

00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:46.510
Do not sit down at the place of honor, et Cetera, et cetera.

00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:50.409
This will fit beautifully and it will be new to my congregation.

00:35:50.619 --> 00:35:51.219
So thank you.

00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:53.360
Well done.

00:35:53.389 --> 00:35:58.039
Well that's we as Lectionary too, so I'm, I'm going to keep that in the back of my mind also.

00:35:58.760 --> 00:35:59.599
Thank you so much!

00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:00.590
There you go, Carla!

00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:01.159
Yes, thank you.

00:36:01.820 --> 00:36:05.389
You can sing the Joseph hymn for a Father's Day hymn.

00:36:06.110 --> 00:36:08.269
You wouldn't have to do it this day, this time.

00:36:08.610 --> 00:36:10.199
Oh, cool idea.

00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:11.429
Great idea.

00:36:12.840 --> 00:36:17.280
I don't, I have one more tiny little story that you've all reminded me of.

00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:21.659
Again, once a month we have what we call a spiritual practices worships.

00:36:21.661 --> 00:36:23.699
So we, we go out of the sanctuary.

00:36:23.701 --> 00:36:30.000
We go into our fellowship hall and we meditate together, or we have different types of spiritual practices together.

00:36:30.001 --> 00:36:37.710
And the last, last one we did, or maybe two times ago now, we actually wrote letters to detainees at the border.

00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:43.019
There's some organizations that will give your letters to them.

00:36:43.349 --> 00:36:49.590
And so we also saying,"Till All the Jails are Empty" in that service.

00:36:49.619 --> 00:36:53.010
And it was, it was so powerful.

00:36:53.010 --> 00:36:55.199
I mean, I agree with you Nancy.

00:36:55.230 --> 00:37:01.679
When you, the right hymn i s chosen, it can really just drive that message that you're trying to get out there.

00:37:01.710 --> 00:37:02.849
Just drive it home.

00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:05.309
And that's what happened during that service.

00:37:06.659 --> 00:37:13.079
In fact, I think we called our service"Till All the Jails are Empty." because we were kind of making it up as we went.

00:37:13.110 --> 00:37:15.030
It was re, it was a really powerful moment.

00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:16.139
Wow.

00:37:16.650 --> 00:37:22.079
So what other hymnals do you use in your class besides Community of ChristSings?

00:37:25.300 --> 00:37:26.800
Nancy, why don't you take that one.

00:37:27.579 --> 00:37:28.030
Okay.

00:37:28.750 --> 00:37:34.510
We've actually never used a hymnal as a textbook before.

00:37:34.750 --> 00:37:39.429
In fact, the last time we taught the class, Dan, did we have a textbook at all?

00:37:39.431 --> 00:37:40.510
I think we just relied.

00:37:40.510 --> 00:37:44.050
Liberation by Michael Haun.

00:37:44.210 --> 00:37:44.599
Yeah.

00:37:45.579 --> 00:37:52.239
And that was for, for a Cry, For Justice through Hymnody or for our other course on, Uhm, through the church year?

00:37:53.469 --> 00:37:54.909
Singing through the church year..

00:37:55.300 --> 00:37:56.409
Yeah, I think so.

00:37:57.730 --> 00:37:58.000
Yeah.

00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:03.699
We've taught several years together, so it starts to blur a little bit, but,

00:38:04.900 --> 00:38:08.650
We just did a packet of different readings.

00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:10.449
Yeah, that's right.

00:38:12.639 --> 00:38:13.030
Yeah.

00:38:13.210 --> 00:38:30.099
We have access during the class to the hymnals that my church uses because we hold the class in the seminary at American Baptist Seminary of the West and the room that we hold the class and is also the room where my church worships on Sunday.

00:38:30.550 --> 00:38:40.239
So we have a cabinet with the 1990 Presbyterian hymnal and the Chalice hymnal from the Disciples of Christ.

00:38:40.630 --> 00:38:43.030
And then, uh,.

00:38:44.389 --> 00:38:44.800
The African Heritage Hymnal.

00:38:44.389 --> 00:38:44.800