Our inaugural speaker for our year of learning was Rev. Tripp Hudgins. Tripp is a chaplain, writer, musician, pastor, teacher, sonic theologian, husband, and father. He currently serves as a hospice chaplain in Richmond, VA. (You can read more from Tripp on Substack.)
His talk was "Listening as an Act of Love." It was a dynamic hour that involved rethinking the music we use in sacred spaces.
Apologies for the sound quality. Ironically, we were having technical difficulties that made the actual sound for our discussion of sound not work so well.
He invited us into an exercise in which everyone in attendance wrote down their three favorite songs - not worship songs, any songs - on an index card (or in the Facebook chat). He used these to create a playlist for us. In essence, this is one way to think about what our group sounds like. Do our worship spaces sound like the people who are there?
Listening to each other's music is one way to truly listen to each other.
As we rethink and reimagine worship, how can our music shape who we are in community together?