A note on the future of worship at Christ Church Philadelphia
From the Rector
What is worship? Over the past few months, we have grappled as a congregation with this rather tricky question. Most of us respond by talking about how we like to worship, and since our music is so central to worship and we are searching for a new director of music, we talk about the type of church music we want, and the traditions of church music with which we are comfortable.
We still have further to go in perceiving and articulating more clearly as a community what God is revealing to us – and therefore through us – in what worship at Christ Church says about God. Here are some common themes in our recent conversations:
· Worship is a gift, given to us by God and, as any divine gift, constantly renewed by God. While we gather to worship to be inspired and filled with hope, we understand worship, in the best sense of the word, to be a duty, work that is ours to do with joy. We gather to break and share the bread of hope and new life, and to say the prayers for the world and ourselves.
· Worship is the way we give praise and thanks to God for our lives, for the creation, and for the joy of life.
· Worship is the way we can share our sadness and disappointments in life with God, and ask for God to guide us through.
· Worship is the way in which we allow God to challenge us. The scriptures and the sermon challenge us to love God and neighbor, and we confess our faults and weaknesses in doing this work that God has entrusted to us. Through worship God challenges us to go beyond our own fears and prejudices.
· At Christ Church, worship is grounded in the Book of Common Prayer and the music traditions that have been part of our history for 250 years.
· We want worship to be more comforting than challenging, more familiar than different, and more accessible than exclusive.
· We want worship to be hospitable to visitor and stranger and we will be better able to invite them into our worship if the styles, customs and logistics of worship are easier to understand and manage.
· We are less willing to explore how our worship and music are culturally constrained by predominately English and European tradition so as to be exclusive to worshipers who come with a more global, multi-cultural experience.
· We want our children and youth to worship with us, and to lead worship with us, including through a children and teen choir or mixed choir.
What I discern from these many conversations is that we are seeking a director of music who is skilled in offering music solidly in what can be seen as traditional Episcopal music, but whose awareness of the worship in other traditions and other musical resources in our city, country, and world, including newer music by contemporary sacred-music composers might expand our experience of worship even more beautiful and more moving. We want a minister of music, more than a director, who will teach us, not force us, as she or he guides us into the next chapter of Christ Church’s long history of offering to God praise and thanks and receiving God’s never-ending gift of transformation, a chapter that will include a new and masterful organ and its role in our prominent and public church. We want someone who will help open up for our children and youth the joy and awe of worship and the sheer fun of giving praise to God. We seek a leader who understands how our worship and all our other musical offerings are an invitation to the community around us to come into the life of Christ Church.
This vision results in a shift from this description of the job as it was held by our previous organist-choirmaster over a tenure of 44 years-
• 30 hours per week. Available in office a minimum of 8 hours for meetings, consultations.
• Available one evening twice per month for committee meetings.
• Mid-September through mid-June: 9 AM Sunday service with cantor or quartet; 11 AM Sunday service with adult choir, composed of 8 professional singers and occasional volunteers from congregation with choral experience.
• July and August, same schedule, no choir or quartet. Cantor as budget allows.
• Choir rehearses on Sunday morning before and after services.
• Additional services include Advent Lessons and Carols, Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Thanksgiving Eve.
• Organization of 8 monthly First Friday organ and/or choral concerts
• Scheduling the Organ maintenance and other musical instruments; working with the Organ and Property Committee on the organ project.
• Hiring of special instrumentalists for Christmas, Easter and other services.
• Maintenance of music library, and purchasing of new music for the library.
• Playing weddings and funerals, compensated separately based on fees in AAM guidelines and local standards.
--to the following job description for the future:
• To be full-time
• To include musical ministry in both the traditional venues of church and the development of citywide arts programs in Neighborhood House
• To begin with a professional choir of eight voices, yet quickly move toward a volunteer choir with professionals that rehearses outside of Sunday morning and provides a cohesive sense of community among the singers.
• To begin an intentional music program for children and youth, including the development of a choir and including musical programs for those beyond the church’s walls. To learn about our existing programs for children and youth, as well as our commitment to inclusiveness, please click here.
• To take a leadership role in the planning and fundraising for the next organ at Christ Church, currently contracted with Schoenstein.
• To guide the maintenance of the Curtis Memorial organ in its current state and/or transitional arrangements until the new organ is in place. For a description of the organ in its original state, click here.
• To be a teacher as well as worship leader, organist, and choirmaster, in helping the congregation reflect on its ways of worship and its new opportunities
Salary and benefits:
Salary range (depending on qualifications and experience) and benefits commensurate with standards set by the Association of Anglican Musicians guidelines.