Worship [WO]
WO0515 Public Worship: Leadership in Word and Sacrament, Prayer and Thanksgiving
With the aim of preparing evangelical leaders of public worship, this course engages the student in the experience of worship as an encounter between God’s Word and community. It combines the practice of communal worship with biblical, theological, historical, and interfaith reflection. The course focuses on embodied skills of liturgical planning and presiding through a creative, Gospel-rooted approach to rituals, sermons, art, music, and hymnody (local and global, as well as ecumenical, traditional, and contemporary) of Christian worship practice. Through these practices, students give witness to Jesus Christ in God’s mission of reconciliation, justice, and peace for all creation.
Prerequisite: OT0115 Law and Narrative or NT0214-NT0218, or equivalent; SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly
Full course
WO4515 Contemporary and Alternative Worship
The course surveys current trends in worship emerging in response to the culture of global late modernity/postmodernity. It will explore some characteristics of present global culture and the culture of consumerism, and some theological responses. It will consider such forms of worship as Seeker Services, Praise and Worship music and the Contemporary worship music industry; the Vineyard worship; neo-Celtic worship; alternative worship; Emerging worship; and Liquid Worship. Students will create, experience, and lead a variety of worship experiences.
This course includes assignments in context. Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full or half course
WO4518 Congregation as Catechetical Community
Both post-modern secular culture and the growth of global Christianity have contributed to a renewal of historic patterns of catechesis (early-church and reformation) leading to the rites of initiation. Additionally, there has been renewal of various related rites of affirmation at particular stages of life including a common teenage affirmation of baptism ritual commonly titled “confirmation.” The course considers the importance of developing congregational apprenticeship processes for incorporation of those new to the community of faith and those renewing such incorporation into Christ. Specific focus will be placed on congregational practice, and attention paid to differences in theology of and ritual and catechetical processes for infants, youth, and adult baptism, as well as such rites for adults at various life-stages.
This course includes assignments in context. Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full or half course
WO4522 Worship and Ecology
This course explores the vital connection between ecology and the theology and practice of Christian worship. It unfolds in three progressive stages: Part I focuses on the Earth in crisis and the modern disenchantment of worship and creation. Part II focuses on ancient and contemporary worship resources for renewed care of creation. Part III focuses on the practice of ecological worship and ethical living as our path to a just future. Theological, liturgical and scientific perspectives will be explored using a wide range of authors, with special attention to The Easter Vigil as a vital center for renewing green worship. This course includes assignments in context.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full course
WO4524 Political Worship
Beginning with historical and contemporary understandings of the political meaning of the church in liberal democratic societies, the course explores the political nature of the church with worship as the central practice of the ‘fellow citizens with the saints’ (Eph. 2:19).
This course includes assignments in context.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full course
WO4527 Music and Worship: Creative Integration
The focus of this course is the use of music in worship and how music enhances proclamation in worship. The integration of hymnody, psalmody, liturgical music and chant will be examined historically though the primary attention is given to the vast spectrum of diverse musical possibilities available today and the mechanics of creative implementation. The class focuses on the various musical components of worship – primarily making use of Evangelical Lutheran Worship resources – though other contemporary and ecumenical resources will be consulted.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full course
WO4538 Children in Worship
Students reflect theologically, historically, and liturgically on children’s ministry. They explore and identify creative ways to engage children in worship experiences, and they prepare intergenerational learning experiences that strengthen the community of faith and its commitment to including children in worship.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full or half course
WO4544 Liturgy and Origins: Sources of Renewal
Through a re-reading of primary, historical liturgical texts, particularly from the early church, we will explore how different communities have searched for a language to witness to the Christ event and ask what that witness means for our liturgical celebrations today. Issues of the origins and normative patterns for worship will be studied.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full course
WO4554 Law and Gospel: A Liturgical Event
This seminar consists in a study of Luther’s approach to preaching through his sermons and his writing on the sacraments and the centrality of the dialectic between law and gospel. We will also explore what this dialectic means today and how it is embodied in a life of faith particularly in worship. What, for examples, are contemporary expressions for “law and gospel”? Luther will be put into conversation with Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Cathy Caruth, Judith Butler and Michel de Certeau.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full course
WO4562 Worship Forming Community: Prayer and Music Leadership
A set of hands-on training labs focused on building skills and developing a greater sensitivity for worship and music leadership. The aim is to help worship leaders in imagining and leading transformative worship experiences. The course will be taught by a variety of practitioners, and will primarily be participatory workshops rather than lecture-based classes. Topics will include but not be limited to: Sunday and seasonal worship planning, lector and presider training, crafting words and prayers for public worship; how to teach new songs to a congregation; encountering and encouraging diversity in worship; re-imagining our physical worship space; expanding your church's musical repertoire; visual art and symbols in worship that are deep and provocative.
Half course
WO4570 The Three-Day Feast
The passion, death and resurrection of Christ are at the heart of Christian life and witness. They find primary liturgical expression in the worship service known as the Three-Day Feast or Triduum. This course explores the specific theological, historical and ritual characteristics of the Three-Day Feast and the dynamics of the liturgical calendar in its re-orienting of time. The Three-Day Feast offers creative possibilities for reaching out in mission to a world longing for meaning.
This course includes assignments in context.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full or half course
WO4573 God’s Mission and Worship
The course seeks to understand the surprising ways God is at work through innovative worship in response to a variety of upheavals currently being experienced by the church in North America. Drawing from understanding of adaptive leadership, the course explores the idea of pastoral imagination for holy worship experiments that call the church into service of the needs of the world. The course combines reading, engagement of worship case studies and in-class worship experiments.
This course includes assignments in context.
Prerequisite: WO0515 Public Worship
Full or half course
WO4597 Guided Reading and Research in Worship
An independent study for qualified students under the personal supervision of a member of the division. Consult faculty within division.
WO6598/8599 Guided Reading and Research in Worship
An independent study for students in Advanced Theological Education. Consult faculty within division and the Advanced Theological Education Office.