Summary

Workshop Number: P-28
Leaders: Amy Wagner
Who May Register?: Open to All
Worship/Worship-Sharing: 27%
Discussion: 51%
Experiential Activities: 22%

Who May Attend?
only full time attenders (participants should attend all week)

Join a community co-creating space for worship with song. Share together singing spirituals, freedom songs, chants of early Quaker writings, hymns and songs sung today, old and new. Read materials before the workshop and create next steps to bring tools and singing practices to your Meeting or other Quaker spaces. This workshop is intended to…


Workshop Description

Join a community co-creating space for worship with song. Share together singing spirituals, freedom songs, chants of early Quaker writings, hymns and songs sung today, old and new. Read materials before the workshop and create next steps to bring tools and singing practices to your Meeting or other Quaker spaces.

This workshop is intended to be a dedicated time to work together to build community with attention to singing as a form of worship. The expectation is that people will be committed to coming to all sessions Monday through Friday. The group will come together in meeting for worship and sing and experience songs, old and new. There will be some materials to view prior to workshop and we ask that you view FGC’s materials about inclusion before you arrive.


The workshop will address three objectives regarding worship and community. First, to create a space for worship. Each day will contain at least an hour in Worship and Worship Sharing. Second, to build community while sharing diverse songs and stories. Third, to create together some new ideas to take back to share with our faith communities.


Music can be a bridge from where groups are now to places where groups need to be. Many of us come to Quaker circles with hope they are safe and welcoming because we have experienced other places which are not. Singing together in a worshipful space, people can bond with the shared energy of song. Each person can be included and bring something of themselves to a song session, so the synergism of working and worshiping together is immediately and viscerally felt. Worshipful singing is different than just talking about doing something, rather, we are doing it all together in the moment. Singing together is enhanced by varied ages and backgrounds.
As the name implies, using the tree analogy, this group will explore roots, branches and produce some fruit. This workshop will honor roots with songs from the BIPOC experience, and chants of early Quaker inspiration. We will explore various branches such as songs Quakers sing in other countries, and both familiar and newer songs. We expect to bear some fruit from this time together – new creations and ideas to nourish our home communities.


When in person, we will set community guidelines first creating a framework for expectations and something to refer to if we stray. In worship sharing, we will encourage folks to talk from any personal experience, and the group will acknowledge historical roles of song.
Ideally, prior to the workshop, we can communicate with registrants and give them a chance to send in song suggestions. We will begin with a plan for songs with the understanding that there will be some room for Spirit-led changes later in the week.


We will have copies of the Quaker Hymnal “Worship in Song: A Friends Hymnal.” We will have copies of Rise Up Singing, written by Annie Patterson and Peter Blood (Mount Toby Friends Meeting in Western Massachusetts) with a focus on songs about testimonies like simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship. We have permission to share chants of early Quaker writings that were composed by Friend Paulette Meier (Community Friends Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio). We have access to online song sources and an index of songs compiled by Quakers in Kenya, Africa. We hope to have time to learn about new music being created that resonates Quaker testimonies. There will be times where moving around will be an option, as people are led or as they are able.


What this workshop is not: Since this time is based in worship and inclusion, these sessions are not for playing instruments, which would not be accessible to all and could be distracting. This is not a workshop leading up to a performance. This is about worship-oriented community, so it’s not an open folk song circle or a jam session. Perhaps connections made in this workshop will inspire folks to sing or play instruments at other FGC Gathering spaces during the week.


Leader Experience

Since 2015, Amy has facilitated music gatherings regularly in my professional work and in Quaker spaces. She is a trained vocalist and guitarist with a music degree who leads music programs regularly for nursing home and lifecare community audiences. She also provide music programs in all-age worship spaces, and folk music venues. In 2023, with co-facilitators, she led a Meeting for Worship for Singing workshop at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions. In 2022, she was asked by Marcelle Martin to be an assistant musician/singer at Pendle Hill for the week-long Quaker Wisdom School with Cynthia Bourgeault, supporting Paulette Meier in her chants of early Quaker quotes. Amy lead chanting and singing at her Meeting, where they started a social justice singer/songwriter concert series this year, featuring touring social justice musicians. Crys Matthews’ show is next. As for folk venues, Amy opened for Annie Patterson at a Rise Up Singing concert this year and performed at the last two Philadelphia Folk Festivals. She is always asking for new hymns, spirituals, freedom songs and songs sung in other geographies. She has done multiple clerking trainings and served as Clerk of my Meeting, which involved many meetings for worship with attention to the business during the phases of the Covid 19 pandemic.

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