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: 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: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Our hope is to have those files for download at www.hymnary.org where we will also have additional resources for songs as they become available, such as translations. We will probably leave the texts in Word so that it can easily be used by various presentation technologies. (OF course we will be limited to posting what we can get copyright permission for.)
There is a CD available with the forms and confessions already: http://www.faithaliveresources.org/Worship/Songbooks
These forms etc. can also be accessed online see the link to "CRCNA Website One-Stop Resource Index" on the Worship main page.
http://network.crcna.org/content/worship/crcna-website-one-stop-resource-index-0
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Oui! Nous ferons de notre mieux.
Though it is an official language in Canada the reality is that we have CRC/RCA congregations that worship solely in Spanish, Korean and various other languages but we don't have any that worship solely in French. That being said we will try to include it some. We also have the opportunity to put translations on www.thehymnary.org when they are available (and copyright allows).
The Lutheran church just put out a French hymnal "Liturgies et Cantiques Lutheriens" which includes many traditional hymns. You may find that a useful resource for translations. It is available through Concordia Publishing www.cph.org
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Harry Boonstra wrote the following and asked that it be posted:
I am a newcomer to this forum, and perhaps my questions and comments have been discussed (and resolved!) in the past. If so, just point me in the right direction.
My comments and questions center mostly on psalmody and the psalter. (Years ago I heard a speaker from the exclusive Psalm singing Reformed Presbyterian denomination: “A real psalter contains every verse of every biblical psalm; all others are snippet psalters.” My own tongue in cheek definition is: “If it contains Psalm 137:8-9 it’s probably a real psalter”).
As far as I can determine, CRC Synod 2007 did not ask for a new “Psalter Hymnal”—that is, a “replacement” for the 1987 Psalter Hymnal (the grey PH, or, as editor Emily Brink prefers, the silver PH.) Rather, the mandate was to produce a “bi-denominational songbook” or a “comprehensive hymnal” (Agenda, pp. 206-207). The actual recommendation uses only the term “hymnal” (Acts, 579-80). (I very much like the title chosen for the new “songbook.”)
No. 6 of the FAQ asks, “Will this hymnal include a separate section of psalms (A Psalter)?
The first part of the response says that “the psalms” will be scattered “by subject’ throughout the hymnal.
The UPDATE announces that in addition there will be a separately published psalter.
Of course the designation “psalter” is not always used in the same way, neither in general nor in this FAQ response. For example, the response notes that in Rejoice in the Lord the psalms are in a “discrete Psalter section.” Actually this “psalter” is a unit in Part I, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM PRAISE, under the subheading, “Psalms Praise Him.” Here there are only 63 psalms (#83-143) in numerical sequence. Some of these include the complete biblical psalm; many others are select verses from the biblical psalm (Ps. 119 is spread over two numbers (#129, 130), for a total of 9 stanzas. Psalm 119 is again captured as “Scriptural allusions” in 5 hymns. Obviously this Rejoice “psalter” designation is very different from the 1987 PH, where Psalm 119 is versified in 22 stanzas, all by the same versifier and the same Genevan tune).
It is worth noting the different approaches in the CRC and the RCA traditions. The CRC has always published complete psalters, that is, all 150 psalms were represented. In the 1912-1914 Psalter and in the 1934 (Red) and 1959 (Blue) Psalter Hymnal the 150 psalms were spread over many versifications, that is, the Scottish/English psalter tradition (generally Presbyterian). The 1987 (Grey) Psalter Hymnal went back to the Dutch/Genevan tradition of each biblical psalm represented by one versification and one tune. The RCA has not published a complete psalter since its 1789 Psalms and Hymns….of the Dutch Reformed Church. (Psalm 119 is represented by 121 stanzas). There were many later editions with an ever-increasing number of hymns.
All of this adds up to my main question: What kind of bi-denominational psalter can we look forward to?
Posted in: A New Hymnal - Lift Up Your Hearts
Now to answer Harry's question...
I want to be clear that there are two different products we are talking about. The first is the actual bi-denominational hymnal/songbook entitled "Lift Up Your Hearts: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs" (LUYH, pronounced lu-yah as a short-form). The second is a separate psalter not yet titled.
1. In LUYH you will find representation of all 150 Psalms as you do in the Psalter Hymnal. What is different is that they will not appear in order at the front of the hymnal but will rather be placed where they would fit thematically or in the worship order with a good index at the back of the book in case you are looking for a particular psalm. Some psalms will appear more than once (i.e. Psalm 23) others will only appear once. This hymnal is scheduled for release in 2013.
2. The psalter will be close to the size of LUYH. It will be in the order of the psalms. For each psalm you will first find the full text of the psalm arranged for responsive reading, or reading with multiple voices, along with some pointing and suggested tone for those churches who desire to chant the psalms (the tones themselves will appear elsewhere in the book). Following the text of the psalm will be musical renderings of that particular psalm which could include something from the Genevan Psalter, or another metrical version, as well as psalm composition in a gospel, contemporary/modern, or folk idiom for example. Some psalms will only have one or two musical representations others will have five or more. The psalter is scheduled for release in 2012.
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
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.