Joyce Borger
I am a self-professed worship geek, nerd, or wonk (chose your term). In other words, I love to talk about, participate in, and lead worship. I currently serve as the Director of Worship Ministries for the Christian Reformed Church.
I took my first worship class in 1990 at Kuyper College (Reformed Bible College when I went there), which was a major “aha” moment in my life. After graduating from Kuyper with a Bachelor of Religious Education I continued to study music at Calvin College and graduated from there with a BA in Music Education. During those years I worked with developmentally challenged individuals of all ages, began an inner city youth ministry with a group of young adults, and worked with established church ministries. After graduating I taught highschool Music, Bible, and History for a year before becoming a youth director at a Covenant CRC in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
God continued to lead me this time to seminary and I wondered how God was going to bring all these experiences together. When I graduated with an MDiv from Calvin Theological Seminary in 2003, that question was answered with a call to serve as music and worship editor for Faith Alive Christian Resources. As the music editor I edited the music for educational curriculums, Friendship Ministries, and 7 songbooks including Lift Up Your Hearts. This means that I got to be in conversation with people as we together talk about and discern what various groups within the church and the church as a whole needs to sing to express their joys, sorrows, prayers, and praises. It is a great honor to have been able to serve the church in this way, to listen, and then mould a songbook. As the worship editor I have worked on several projects including the quarterly journal Reformed Worship. As a worship planner I relied on RW to provide me with thoughtful articles and useful resources and as an editor my challenge is to continue doing so, relying on the readers themselves to share of their treasury of creative gifts. Again I got to listen to the churches, take the gifts given and mould them into a useful tool for the church.
I am grateful for the privilege I know have to serve the CRC in a new way as Director of Worship Ministries. For more information on what that is all about check out our developing website at crcna.org/worship.
Posted in: Who Are We Excluding From Worship?
Thanks for sharing this Mark! I love the idea of a "no-shush" church; what a great picture of being the body of Christ together in worship.
Posted in: Does Sin Not Matter Anymore?
Important conversation Christy. Thanks for encouraging us to reflect on this topic. Here are a few of my reflections:
1. There are so many good, theologically balanced songs available to us that I think it is ok sometimes to not choose a song because it doesn't quite maintain the balance we are looking for even though we could argue a case for it.
2. Someone mentioned LUYH's 7 songs listed in the sin section. These were hard to come by. But we felt that if we didn't include sin and the fall of humanity there wouldn't be any need for grace.
3. Part of my struggle with MercyMe's text as presented (and the many other texts it represents) is that it seems to treat the cross in an almost trite way. I don't know if we have a big enough appreciation or understanding of the cross, not just the pain but what it meant for Christ to be fully separated from God, to have descended to hell. Its so easy to say "the cross paid it all". I need a little more holy awe and reverence of the cross itself (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross!). Maybe that's found in the rest of the song or another of their texts but again back to #1... but maybe we could create the balance by singing the MercyMe text followed by "When I Survey"?
Posted in: For Worship Pastors: What Kind of Musician Do You Want to Be?
Welcome Brendan, hope this is a helpful community to be a part of.
Posted in: How Does Your Church Celebrate Mother's and Fathers' Day?
Janice,
Thanks for your transparency and vulnerability. May your words serve as a wake up call to a growing demographic in our churches. In our family oriented church culture we need to be sensitive to those who do not live within a family structure for whatever reason. Mothers/Fathers day is only one time of many situations where the single adult is left on the sidelines or more troubling their grief overlooked.
Posted in: Music Fasting
Looking forward to reading your next post. Would your pastor be willing to share his/her sermon outlines with us?
Posted in: You Write the Caption!
And a child shall lead them!
Posted in: All of Life is Worship - Really?
Sam, you never cease to be provocative in all the right ways. If we take your definition of worship as "worship as declaring the glory and majesty and greatness of our God" then I imagine it is possible to be in a worship service and not be worshiping because you are going over in your head the plans you have for Sunday dinner even as your voice sings "How great is our God". It may also be possible to "declare the glory and majesty and greatness of our God" in our work whenever we see God's activity and acknowledge it. I think that's helpful. But then I wonder...is lament not worship then? confession? or are those expressions of our relationship with God but not worship per se? Is this a matter of how narrow or expansive our definition of worship is?
Posted in: Resources for Praying With the People of Japan
A hymn text: Tectonic Plates Beneath the Ocean's Surface by Andrew Pratt
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
I encourage folks to go to the hymnal website for more info re: the reason behind doing a hymnal. But to respond to the comment regarding the hymnal creating a common voice. I completely agree that churches make use of multiple resources and some do not use any hymnal. For churches that use the most recently composed music no hymnal will meet their needs like the web does. Our hope is that those worship planners will keep a copy of this hymnal as a resource. When deciding to sing a traditional hymn our hope is that you will consult the hymnal to so we can learn/sing the same words regardless of the style of the accompaniment. If such a church wants to include a new song, maybe something from the global church that they will again turn to this hymnal. There are also many churches that will sing directly from the hymnal on occasion and yet other churshes will sing from it solely. In this way we hope to create a common voice.
Maybe it is better to consider the hymnal as a common thread between each church's unique musical tapestry.
In other words we have no delusions that this hymnal will fill the musical needs of allCRC/RCA churches. We are much too diverse for that. But we hope to meet the needs of hymnal using churches and provide a great resource for others to use
And yes CCLI is a great resource for contemporary song (less helpful for traditional hymnody, modern hymnody and global song) we use it all the time as does CICW.
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Darrin, you are tracking with the thinking of the editorial committee! We are hoping to do exactly what you are suggesting the clincher will be the issue of space.
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Zach, you may be in a church that utilizes many resources but what about the churches that only has one hymnal from which they sing? Should they not be provided with the necessary tools to worship in a relavent way?
The appropriate research was done well in advance of the gathering of any committee and it was deemed that there was indeed a desire for and need for a new hymnal. The cost of producing the hymnal is covered through the sales and is not dependent on any ministry shares.
Certainly, many (though not all) of our congregations are comfortable using web resources and this hymnal will be supported by online material, and as much of the material as possible from the hymnal will be available on the web.
There use to be a day when one hymnal met the needs of all churches as did one Sunday School curriculum. The growing diversity within our denomination is a great thing but that means diverse needs. It seems that your congregation's music needs are currently being met through readily available resources on the web; it could very well be that this hymnal may not and that is ok. But, I do hope that you take a careful look at it when it comes out. And, if you are able examine the songbooks already produced and provide feedback on them via the hymnal website.
Posted in: Resources for Praying With the People of Japan
Additional resources can be found on the website from The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.