The Worship and the Arts Symposium, Joining Voices Together, will be held at Bethel College Nov. 12, 2022.
Registration opens July 1.
- Individual: $35 for all or part of the symposium; includes Saturday lunch and supper.
- Group: $20 each when 3 or more people from the same congregation register as a group; includes Saturday lunch and supper.
- Registration is FREE for Bethel College faculty, staff and students and Hesston College students; lunch and supper available in the Bethel cafeteria for regular faculty/staff and student prices.
Symposium presenters
Adam Tice was the hymn text editor for Voices Together. He is widely published writer of hymn and song texts, whose words appear in many recent denominational hymnals. Adam is a member of the editorial staff of GIA Publishers Inc., curating a growing hymn collection called “Unbound.” He lives in Goshen, Ind.
Workshop: Aspirations for Language Use: Considerations for Shaping the Words We Sing
Katie Graber chaired the Intercultural Worship subcommittee for Voices Together. She is an ethnomusicologist who studies race and ethnicity in a variety of contexts, including Mennonite music, American music and European opera. She has taught classes on Western music history and world music, and she accompanies Suzuki recitals and school choirs. She leads singing at her church in Columbus, Ohio. As an outgrowth of her work on Voices Together, Katie co-founded the Anabaptist Worship Network with Anneli Loepp Thiessen.
Workshop: Diverse Voices: Intercultural Worship in Voices Together
SaeJin Lee served on the Worship Resources and Intercultural Worship subcommittees for Voices Together. She studied art and Bible/religion/philosophy at Goshen (Ind.) College and, while in northern Indiana, was a member of Hively Avenue Mennonite Church, where she was a frequent leader of singing and worship. SaeJin now lives in Chicago, where she is an advocate for children in immigrant communities who are trauma survivors.
Workshop: Visio Divina: Worshiping with Our Eyes
Isaac Villegas was a member of the Central Practices committee of Voices Together. He is an ordained minister in Mennonite Church USA and served as pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship for 16 years. Currently, he is the president of the North Carolina Council of Churches while he pursues a Ph.D. in religion at Duke University. He is a columnist for The Christian Century and Anabaptist World magazines.
Workshop: Worship Practices that Join Us to God’s Work of Liberation
Bradley Kauffman served as project director and general editor for Voices Together. He has more than 20 years of experience in music education, having enjoyed teaching roles in Iowa, Kansas and Indiana. A proponent of lifelong music-making, Bradley has conducted intergenerational community choirs in four states. Bradley lives in Goshen, Ind., with his spouse, Renee Kanagy, and children Lucca and Rowan.
Rachel Epp Buller is professor of visual arts and design at Bethel College.
Cynthia Neufeld Smith is a long-time church musician and pastor and was a member of the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee responsible for Voices Together.
| 8:30 | Registration |
| 9:00–9:50 | Plenary I: What Language [Did We] Borrow?: The Sounds of Twentieth-Century Mennonite Denominational Collections |
| 9:50 | Stretch break |
| 10:00–10:50 | Plenary II: Voices Together: Curating a 21st-Century Collection |
| 10:50 | Break |
| 11:15–12:00 | Art in Voices Together (SaeJin Lee and Rachel Epp Buller) |
| 12:00–1:30 | Lunch |
| 1:30–2:20 | Breakout I |
| 2:30–3:20 | Breakout II |
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Concurrent breakout topics
Aspirations for Language Use (Adam Tice)
Diverse Voices: Intercultural Worship in Voices Together (Katie Graber)
A Keyboardist's Introduction to Voices Together (Cynthia Neufeld Smith)
Holy Ground: Discernment and Decision-Making in Voices Together (Bradley Kauffman)
Visio Divina: Worshiping with Our Eyes (SaeJin Lee)
Worship Practices that Join Us to God’s Work of Liberation (Isaac Villegas)
Plenary I: Developments in Mennonite Singing in the 20th Century (historical context)
Plenary II: Why Voices Together? Why Now?
Image: Dona Park, Communion, 2018
