Loading...Music and Vital Congregations: A Practical Guide for Clergy by William Bradley Roberts 129 pp Church Publishing New York 2009
Dr. Bill Roberts is well known in the Diocese of Kentucky not only for the work he did during his tenure as minister of music at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Louisville, but also for the many lectures and workshops he has given across the country while holding posts in California, Arizona and Washington, DC, and now as professor of church music at Virginia Seminary.
In this little handbook, Roberts offers guidance to both clergy and musicians in ways they can work together to better meet the needs of their congregation. "Give them great music and great preaching, and they will come," he quotes from the words of an African American Baptist preacher. Both preaching and music are needed for effective worship, but too often, due to their diverse backgrounds and training, clergy and music leaders have difficulty working and planning together.
Each chapter of Roberts' book points out a problem that many congregational leaders face and ways in which they can avoid foundering on the rocks of dissension by looking at problems from the other person's point of view.
All church leaders are pastors, teachers and performers, Roberts contends, and many of the needless controversies that arise between clergy and musicians come from the inability of each to recognize the need for the other to fulfill those roles. Most musicians are trained in specific skills of performance while clergy training focuses on theology and ways to understand and transmit the foundations of faith. Working together, clergy and musicians need to reach a common understanding of their theology and the many ways music can support the joyous and the mystical elements of faith.
The major part of Roberts' book is devoted to practical ways to approach such areas of teaching and ministry as music for weddings and funerals, classical vs. popular music for worship, and incorporating music from other cultures and countries into the worship service. Most useful, perhaps, are the lists of sources for music beyond the Hymnal or Lift Every Voice. Because Roberts has actually used much of the music he suggests, he can comment with authority on its usefulness.
