Ministry in Steel Toe Shoes
Building the Beloved Community
Navigation
  • Home
  • About Me
  • About My Shoes
  • About Unitarian Universalism
You are here: Home › Church Newsletter › Why We Sing Together
← Wrestling With History
Making Sense of Hard Times →

Why We Sing Together

March 1, 2011 | Filed under: Church Newsletter, Ministry, Worship and tagged with: Starr King Church

The second week of February, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association gathered for a week in Pacific Grove for the Excellence in Ministry Institute. This event is the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of continuing education opportunities for Unitarian Universalist ministers. Katie and I were both fortunate to be able to attend.

For my week by the ocean, I chose to attend the “Building A Vocal Community” seminar led by Ysaye Barnwell. Dr. Barnwell is a Unitarian Universalist and one of the members of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the Grammy award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble. She is the author of two of the songs in our Singing the Journey hymnal: Breaths and We Are. Music is a critical part of meaningful worship, and I was thrilled to be able to study with Dr. Barnwell.

Here’s what it was like: we didn’t use a hymnal. We didn’t use sheet music at all. We didn’t even use words projected onto a screen. We stood in a circle so we could see each other. We listened to Dr. Barnwell as she would sing an opening line, her invitation for us to join her. And then we responded, keeping our eyes on her and on each other, keeping our ears open to hear each other. We didn’t try to all sound the same. And we didn’t try to sound perfect, creating some idealized version of each song. We weren’t a choir. We were a community.

It was a powerful experience.

José Antonio Abreu is a Venezuelan musician, activist, and educator. He observes, “An orchestra is a community where the essential and exclusive feature is that it is the only community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement.”

That experience of agreement is undoubtedly part of the power and joy of singing together.

Abreu goes on: “And what does the experience of agreement mean? Team practice, the practice of the group that recognizes itself as interdependent, where everyone is responsible for others and the others are responsible for oneself.”

It seems to me, then, that singing together is an affirmation of two of our Unitarian Universalist principles: the inherent worth and dignity of every person—for each voice has its part to sing—as well as the interdependent web of all existence, the recognition that each voice depends on the others.

No wonder singing is such a significant part of our worship life.

Bright blessings, Sharon

Did you like this article? Share it with your friends!

Tweet
← Wrestling With History
Making Sense of Hard Times →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archives

Recent Posts

  • Unitarian Universalist Prayer Beads 2024
  • Are you still UU? (A post-GA reflection)
  • My Daily Log for Depression
  • How to Evaluate the Minister
  • It’s Not About the Lattes: And Other Things Millennial Parents Want UU Congregations to Know

Blogroll

  • Hold My Chalice
  • PostSecret
  • Sermons in Stones
  • Universalist Prayers

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Categories

  • Announcements
  • Church 101
  • Church 201
  • Church Construction
    • Architecture
    • Arts
    • Best Practices
    • Buying A Building
    • Interiors
    • New Construction
    • Renovation
    • Steeples
  • Church Newsletter
  • In the Media
  • Ministry
    • Fun
    • Pastoral Care
    • Practical Arts
    • Prophetic Outreach
    • Self Care
    • Spiritual Practice
    • Teaching
    • Worship
  • Sermons

Tags

Anti-Racism Books Chalice UUC Community Congregational Health Construction Faith in Action Free and Responsible Search General Assembly Grief Immigration Reform Interdependent Web Leadership Living Our Principles Mental Health Mission MLK Movies Past Pledging Poem Prayer Religious Identity sabbatical Starr King Church Starr King School for the Ministry Tea Theology UU Church of Berkeley UU Congregation of Marin UU History Voluntary Simplicity

Anti-Racism Resources

  • Being a White Ally
  • Colorlines.com News for Action
  • Paul Kivel
  • Unmasking Racial Micro Aggressions
  • White Guilt (3 min. video)
  • White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Unitarian Universalism on the Web

  • Church of the Larger Fellowship
  • Discover UU
  • DRUUMM (People of Color Org)
  • Find A UU Congregation
  • Standing on the Side of Love
  • UU Allies for Racial Equity
  • UU Association
  • UU Legislative Ministries
  • UU Quotes
  • UU Service Committee
  • UU Theological Groups
  • UU World (Magazine)
  • UUA Blogs
  • UUA Bookstore
  • UUpdates News Aggregator

Immigration Reform

  • CA Immigrant Policy Center
  • Detention Watch Network
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • Immigration Bulletin Daily
  • Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights
  • UUA Immigration Justice

© 2025 Ministry in Steel Toe Shoes

Powered by Esplanade Theme by One Designs and WordPress