Explorations in Creativity,
Worship, and Faith
June 9-13, 2008
Daily
Schedule
Details
Cost/CEUs/Credit
Lodging
Registration
Summer Institute brochure (PDF)
Details
Morning
Workshop Options
1) Music and the Arts: The Starting Point for Worship Design
Exciting things happen when music and the arts become the starting point for worship design and planning. Key to this are guiding principles for the use of music and other arts. Examples showing arts-centered planning in large and small assemblies will combine with ideas from some of today’s artists and worship designers and ways to access resources. Each session will have creative time for participants to explore and create new designs for varied worship possibilities, try them out, and envision ways to make the arts alive in their own congregations.
Arthur Clyde has spent a lifetime in music and arts ministries. In addition to his experience in congregations, as minister for worship, music, and liturgical arts for the United Church of Christ (UCC), he created resources and workshops in those areas and was editor of The New Century Hymnal. He has been a worship designer and consultant for both UCC and ecumenical national gatherings and synods. He is a composer and conductor and an adjunct faculty member at United Theological Seminary.
2) Transformation & the Story: A Writing Workshop
“To perceive the spiritual in a slice of life or a piece of art,” Thomas Moore writes, “we may have to make a good story of it. A story has the uncanny ability to raise the spirit out of the flesh like bread rising yeasty in a warm place.” Transformation inspires us to write and touches us in the writing process. In this workshop, we will play with memories of gradual change, sudden epiphany, and the slow, subtle workings of the Spirit. Using both poetry and prose, we’ll explore how to write stories of transformation that touch our readers’ hearts—and continue to change our own.
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is the author of Swinging on the Garden Gate, Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir, and On the Threshold: Home, Hardwood, and Holiness, a collection of personal essays. She has also published essays in the anthologies My Red Couch and Riding Shotgun, in The Christian Century, and in various literary journals. She teaches at the Loft Literary Center and at Hamline University. Her Web site is www.spiritualmemoir.com.
Afternoon
Workshop Options
3) Sacred Time: Living in the Rhythms of Nature and the Liturgical Year
Attending to the ways that calendars, clocks, and seasons structure our spiritual and ordinary lives is the subject of this workshop. Participants will be invited to consider the complicated and contradictory patterns of the liturgical and secular years, the contrasts between historical and cyclical ideas of time, the keeping of Sabbath, times of celebration, life’s transitions, and eschatological anxiety and hope. Class projects will incorporate dimensions of worship planning, pastoral care, and ethical reflections related to these issues.
Robin Jensen is the Luce Chancellor’s professor of the history of Christian art and worship at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Her teaching includes courses on the history of Christian worship, sacred space and time, and the Bible in visual art. Her research writings have focused on the intersections between visual art and ritual practices in the early Christian church. Outside of the classroom and study, her passions are her garden, dinner parties, and travel.
4) Spirituality of Icons
The workshop will explore the development of early Christian iconography from its birth to contemporary times, offering participants an introduction of the icon’s theology and spirituality. Participants will be provided knowledge about what iconography represents in function and purpose and will also be offered insights and experiences into the spiritual depth of icons and how they are used in religious practice and worship. In addition to presentations, the group will visit local churches illustrative of Byzantine style iconography. The final class session will take place at Debra Korluka’s working studio in Stillwater.
Debra Korluka is an iconographer and artist of international recognition who designs tours and pilgrimages to cultures rich in iconographic art, thereby offering studies of immersion. She also teaches workshops at seminaries, colleges, and churches, and offers private instruction. “Spiritual Treasures,” an exhibition of Korluka’s icons, is on display at United through June 13, 2008. www.icon-art-studios.com
Richard Scheerer, adjunct faculty at United Theological Seminary, will share leadership with Debra Korluka and offer both theological reflection and spiritual insight into the role of icons.
Korluka and Scheerer will lead a pilgrimage to Russia in January 2009: “Seeking the Face of Christ in Russia: An Experiential Pilgrimage.” For more information, see our Web site at www.unitedseminary.edu/programs/arts.asp.
Plenary
Sessions
Plenary sessions, held in the architecture-award-winning Bigelow Chapel, differ daily, with each experiential session led by a different workshop leader or someone from the community. Plenary sessions provide an opportunity for the entire community to come together for learning and celebration. The plenary hour closes with worship.
If you can’t attend the Summer Institute workshops but are interested in the plenary sessions, you may register for any plenary at $10.00 each by calling 651.255.6138.
MONDAY
The Power of the Arts
Robin Jensen
TUESDAY
Icons as Spiritual Treasure
Debra Korluka
WEDNESDAY
The Writing Way
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
THURSDAY
Traditional Dances as Spiritual Practice
Emily Jarrett Hughes
Emily Jarrett Hughes is a dancer, dance teacher, performer, choreographer, healer, and spiritual seeker. Through dance, she leads groups into greater connection with each other, the earth, and sacred Mystery. She also is assistant director of organizational development at the Minnesota Council of Churches.
FRIDAY
The Arts & Worship (a closing culmination for the week)
Arthur Clyde
Cost/CEUs/Credit
Weeklong
Full-day Registration
Regular |
|
$270 |
Early |
|
$220 (before
May 15) |
Student |
|
$100
(full-time seminary student) |
Weeklong
Half-day Registration
Regular |
|
$195 |
Early |
|
$170 (before
May 15) |
Student |
|
$75
(full-time seminary student) |
-
Participants
can receive CEUs.
- United students may take workshops in conjunction with an Independent
Study for credit. For more information about this option, contact
your advisor.
- Limited scholarships are available. To inquire, call 651.255.6138.
Lodging
Subject
to availability, United may offer limited on-campus
housing.
For information on
lodging at United or other nearby options, click here.
Registration
Online
Registration
(requires
a Visa or MasterCard)
OR
Download
a Registration Form
(requires
Adobe Reader)
For
more information
To learn more about United’s Religion and the Arts Program
or the Summer Institute in Spirituality and the Arts, contact
Renee K. Flesner,
651.255.6138. For information about the Masters Program in
Theology and the Arts, contact Michelle
Rodriguez, 651.255.6119. |
