virtual hallelujahs: singing and making community online

April 23, 2020 by Paul Vasile in Congregational Song, Church, Leadership, Pandemic

Earlier this month, I was honored to facilitate one of Eden Theological Seminary’s new theological e-forums, which invite faculty to reflect on resources from their academic areas in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic.

It was rich, wide-ranging conversation about music making and community building and I was especially grateful to be joined by talented, insightful colleagues like Dr. Tony McNeil and Sarah Bereza, who helped offer a broader perspective on the gifts and challenges we're seeing.

making music and meaning in a time of separation

March 30, 2020 by Paul Vasile in podcast, News, Leadership

I was excited for an invitation to participate in Radical Love Live in mid-March, an event hosted by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City that creates space for people to talk about spirituality in all its forms. We had a rich planning call and hoped to move forward, while carefully monitoring the movement of Covid-19 in the country. When we knew the live event would need to be cancelled, along with my travel to the city, co-creators Kelly Wilson and Mark Dilcom invited me to be part of online interview which they released as a podcast.

singing as a holy act

May 08, 2019 by Paul Vasile in Congregational Song, Leadership, Church

I wonder what would it look like to imagine worship as a kind of holy rehearsal space. What if singing together is a place we are put back together, where we remember, re-discover and renew what we believe?

What if this congregation is a choir: a community of learning where we have the opportunity to grow into new experiences, trusting there is no success or failure but a deep pool of grace that holds us as we try and try again?

What might it look like to put to practice this way of love through our voices, through the tunes and rhythms we share in song?

singing the movement into being

October 30, 2017 by Paul Vasile in Leadership, Music, Social Justice

I’m convinced singing has a role to play in the moral and political struggles of this moment but it has been notably absent at protests and marches I’ve participated in over the past three years. What can we do? What is already being done? How might music enliven and sustain today’s movement and help us ‘sing a new world into being,’ as hymn writer Mary Louise Bringle invites?

learning to befriend our fears

August 17, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Congregational Song, Leadership

Learning spaces are challenging spaces. To gain a new skill requires humility and resilience, flexibility and fortitude. When we come up against our limitations, it can bruise the ego and cause us to doubt our ability or value. But what I’ve experienced through Music That Makes Community is that learning can be a joyful, enlivening, liberating experience. While we can never ease the discomfort that comes from learning a new skill or the jitters before sharing a new song, it is empowering to name our fears, to befriend them, and look for the surprising lessons and gifts these uncomfortable spaces offer to us.