What’s Happening Around the Beeson Corner
Despite the many difficulties caused by the COVID pandemic, the 2020-2021 academic year has been an exciting one for Vital Worship programming at Asbury Theological Seminary. Here are a few highlights of the year thus far:
August 2020
The Vital Worship program partnered with the Provost’s Office and the Office of Alumni to begin work on numerous recording projects. One of these projects was the digitization and remastering of two Seminary Singers albums, originally recorded in 1970 and 1973. Additionally, a new arrangement of “And Can It Be” was recorded, which included a digital morphing of Seminary Singers’ voices from 1973 together with Seminary Singers from 2020.
September 2020
The Vital Worship program launched the Hymnody: Theology, Formation, & Worship project, a year-long hymn-study project for students and alumni, which is being funded through the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship’s Vital Worship Grant and through the generous support of the Lilly Endowment Incorporation.
October 2020
As part of the Hymnody project, Brock Terry (minster of music at First United Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky) led a workshop for students and alumni, which focused on selecting and leading congregational music in the local church. Brock also taught basic conducting skills to workshop participants.
January 2021
In connection with the Asbury Institutes, Asbury held its first Worship Conference. The conference was held entirely online and focused on Congregational Song in the Local Church. In addition to presentations by Asbury staff and faculty, guest presenters included Casey Culbreth (Worship Pastor, Grace Church), Josh Lavender (founder of the Wesleyan Worship Project/Worship Director, Trinity Wesleyan Church), and Tesia Mallory (Director of Worship, United Theological Seminary).
March 2021
As part of the Hymnody project, Asbury brought musical artist Sandra McCracken to campus for a day full of events, including speaking and singing in chapel, hosting a workshop on songwriting, and leading an evening vesper service. Sandra is a singer-songwriter and hymn writer, and has produced 14 solo albums over the past two decades. Her best-selling album, Psalms, which was released in 2015, received critical acclaim, followed by her album, God’s Highway, which was released in 2017 and made the top 50 on Billboard Heatseekers chart. She has had songs featured on television, including the song “Ten Thousand Angels” on the ABC show Grey’s Anatomy, and to date, her music has over 15 million streams online. Sandra also joined Heidi Wilcox for an interview on Asbury’s Thrive podcast, which is available now online.
Coming Soon: April 2021
The Vital Worship program will host a community-wide hymn sing event for the Asbury Seminary, Asbury University, and broader Wilmore community. The event will be in person (socially distanced and masked!) and will include presentations by Hymnody project participants as well as lots of robust congregational singing!
Certainly, the 2020-2021 academic year has been quite busy, but it also has been a very blessed year. We are appreciative for these many wonderful opportunities to invest musically in the seminary’s theological formation and worshiping life.
Thank you