Worship Notes - "The Calvin Univeristy Worship Symposium 2025"
Worship Symposium 2025 @ Calvin University ~ Artwork by Barbara Februar
In February, four people from Mountainview’s worship ministry attended The Calvin Symposium on Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s planned and hosted by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. At the last moment, George & Sylvia Prins were not able to attend. And I stayed home for health reasons (I wasn’t sure how my vestibular neuritis would act).
I was grateful to watch almost all of the worship services on-line and so I felt a bit connected with the group in Grand Rapids, and again so inspired with ideas for my work as Worship Director. I was most moved by the exquisite choral singing in the final worship – the choirs from Hope College and Calvin University inspired our minds and hearts with lyrics and harmonies that drew us to God.
One of my regrets about not being at the symposium this year was missing my favourite worship group Porter’s Gate introduce songs from their newest album “Sending Songs.” I was able to watch and listen on symposium’s YouTube channel and I will definitely be finding ways to incorporate a couple of these songs in worship at Mountainview.
I’m so pleased that Alice, Veronica, David, and Dave were able to experience this symposium – three of them for the first time! While some months have passed, their growth and learning continue to bear fruit in their lives. We are all grateful for our church community that supports these learning opportunities.
Ruth Ann Schuringa
Worship Notes – Symposium Stories
What a gift it is to be blessed by this congregation to attend the Worship Symposium 2025. Amazing, is the most frequent word I said and heard. How amazing… was the worship, the fellowship. How amazing were… the preachers, the workshop leaders, the vespers, the conversations, the musicians and vocalists, the choirs. I could go on.
From Wed at 1pm to Friday at 5 pm we attended 5 Worship services, 2 Vespers and 8 workshops. It was two and half days of drinking from a fire hose of the refreshing waters of worship!
It’s hard to pick a favourite workshop. I learned some great things in the workshop entitled “The ABC’s of the Body at Worship.” Going through the alphabet it gave some great insight and suggestions for the use of our physical bodies in worship. It is not a checklist of things to incorporate, but ways to spark our imagination, to encourage more physical use of our bodies in worship, recognizing that movement helps us to engage our hearts and minds.
I went to several workshops about reconciliation, living in a divided culture and discipling our emotions. My take-home: Christian communities ought to form people into reconciling communities. If you’re part of the family of God you should be identified as a peacemaker, it’s our role, we grow and are equipped to become peacemakers, it doesn’t just happen.
In times of conflict the emotions of fear, shame, grief and anger are most often present. We need to deal with these four emotions; 1) we need to expose our fears; 2) we need to understand and negotiate shame; 3) we need to practice grief and 4) we need to learn how to be angry, to process anger in healthy redemptive ways.
I could go on, but I should leave some space for the other participants. Thank you to this body for allowing us to engage in something that is so life-giving and transformative. I look forward to ongoing conversations here at Mountainview to share all I heard and saw.
~ Alice Posthumus
I was blessed to go to the Calvin Worship Symposium 2025. Truly a one-of-a-kind experience. I want to highlight one workshop and one service that I found particularly inspiring.
The first workshop I took on the Wednesday afternoon was titled: A New Testament in Color. This workshop was about a book. A book that the four panelists had been a part of writing, three of them being editors. All of these people had diverse backgrounds all with different cultural experiences. Their book, as we learned, was a multiethnic Bible commentary that challenged what it means to simply read the bible. For example, a black person may read the Bible in order to help them understand their identity and value as a person while a white European may not read the Bible for those reasons simply because of their “social location.” The whole workshop was based on trying to understand how different people read the Bible and how to be in conversation about that.
The worship service on Thursday night led by a gospel choir was by far my favourite service. If you were to ask me to describe my ideal musical experience this would be it. Did I know the songs that were being sung? Did I know what they were singing all the time? No. But the joy that every single person in the band and in the choir and especially the choir director had was contagious.
Overall, this was an event that I learned a lot from, and I am grateful for those that went along with me.
~ David Vanderkolk
God. “The God of All People” was never so evident to me as it was these few days. Most of the services had worship through songs that were done in various languages, be it Hindu, Cantonese, Spanish, Indian or English. For many songs two or more languages were incorporated.
The Theme of the Symposium was the Parables of Luke, and the services/ sermons that focused on the Parables was such an interesting mix of preachers and styles of preaching. For one Pastor it may have been literally going through each ‘event’ happening in the parable; another Pastor sums it up in how we as humans in this day and age are like the people portrayed in the parable.
So many of the sessions I attended were very touching to me in a personal way. Whether it was confirming how “People Living with Dementia” still need worship and how to do that or learning the art of written prayer or creating word pictures and using our whole bodies for worshipping.
The Dementia session I attended was a very personal one for me. My Mom is almost 93 and has had varying levels of Dementia for years. Humans are created for relationships with God and others. Even if people forget, God never forgets them. The presenters explained that we need to slow our speech down, lower our tone, give visuals as concrete examples, and to go with the flow as we worship with those with Dementia. I bought the book with various worship modules and hope it will help my mom participate in worship, even with dementia.
A practice to incorporate into everyday life for all of us who have been baptized is to “Live into our Baptismal Identity.” I loved the idea of implementing this into corporate worship also by remembering our Baptism, touching the waters, before we partake in communion.
As a vocalist, learning about the meaning of the last “Sending and Blessing” song in worship was enlightening, shown to us by the songs that Porter's Gate led during a Vesper Service. A sending song can be Missional, Corporate and Communal, Hope, Formative for God’s presence, or Promise.
Having no idea what to expect at a 3-day symposium like this (versus a one day worship convention) and having so many various workshops to choose from, my experience was wonderful. It was so nice to have this opportunity, to travel with others from church, to have lovely accommodations, to learn so much, it was such a good experience. Again, to know and see that God is the God of all people - quite a reminder of this on these three days. I am grateful that our church allowed us this opportunity to grow and learn!
~ Veronica DeBoer
I feel so blessed to have attended the worship symposium this year. As this was my first time attending, I wasn't sure what to expect from the learning sessions, worship, and the event as a whole. It was amazing to see Christians from many different denominations gathering together for the cause of furthering God's kingdom in worship, to be inspired and fulfilled.
I attended sessions including content on Korean worship, Black American History, how different cultures interpret the Bible because of their history, collaboration in music, jazz, technology, and more. One of the stand-out sessions for me was about how the secular world is impacting the Church, about how the Church can stay relevant in a time where everything we can imagine is at our fingertips, and the church keeping pace with a constantly accelerating world. My key take away from this session is "slowing down". Living in a world with a constant whirlwind of social media, fake news around every corner, and the pressure to be something you're not. This is exhausting. Slow down. Recognize what is really important in life and take hold.
The worship sessions were moving and inspiring. Every service was unique, highlighting music from different cultures and worship styles. A highlight of the worship session for me were the choirs at the last service. Majestic vocals filling the auditorium had me almost in tears.
It was great to have David, Alice and Veronica there to debrief after the day, talk about our sessions, and have much needed down time after a few very full days.
I want to thank Ruth Ann and the church for having this amazing opportunity to learn and grow. I look forward to what next year's symposium has to offer!
~ Dave Rintjema
