The Leadership Program for Musicians Serving Small Congregations leading to the Presiding Bishop's Certificate in Church Music is a program of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the Episcopal Church, The Division for Congregational Ministries Worship Staff of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Virginia Theological Seminary. It was developed in response to the following issues:

• Funding for music is often the first to go when cuts need to be made, whether in church or in the public schools.
• Church musicians often work in small congregations, struggling with new ways of doing things, often unfamiliar with the Episcopal or Lutheran tradition.
• Young people, who often have the skills to be church musicians, need encouragement and support, as do established musicians who value the opportunity to gather and learn from one another.
  

Most local programs are designed to cover the courses in a two-year period meeting once a month for 10 months each year. The program culminates in the earning of The Presiding Bishop's Certificate in Church Music.

What Is The Presiding Bishop's Certificate?

The Presiding Bishop's Certificate aims to provide education for church musicians and clergy who want to increase the musical, pastoral, theological, and leadership skills that are central to their work in the Church.

Classes call on participants' imagination and creativity, asking them to explore the different opportunities music in worship presents, such as diverse ethnic repertoires and styles, and the role of music in evangelism, liturgy, and church life. Attention is particularly given to the needs and ways of small churches.

Clergy as well as musicians are encouraged to take part and attention is given to forming good musician-clergy relations. Ideally, more than one person from each congregation will participate. Young people with potential musical talent and potential leadership skills should be sought out and encouraged to attend.

The goals of the program are to give participants an increased sense of vocational awareness, commitment to music ministry, and self-worth as lay ministers, to improve musical, pastoral, and leadership skills, and to expand their own and their congregations' visions of the variety of music and leadership practices that are appropriate to the liturgies of the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches.

The Syllabus

• Philosophy of Church Music
  
• Leadership of Congregational Song
  
• The Hymnody of the Christian Church
  
• Liturgy and Music: Foundations for Christian Worship
  
• Principles of Choral Leadership
  
• Teaching New Music to the Congregation
  
• Resources for an Effective Music Ministry
   

What Will I Learn?

Each diocese and synod in the country is using the same syllabus for the Presiding Bishop's Certificate that is provided when an administrator of the local program attends the Coordinator Development Conference offered each summer at a national site. Each key area is summarized here.

I. Philosophy of Church Music

The culmination of this course is that students produce their own written philosophy of church music. Class sessions offer ideas about church music from practitioners who come from several centuries and from widely differing perspectives. These ideas serve as an impetus for the student’s emerging philosophy. It is hoped that the philosophies that materialize from this course will represent a variety of perspectives.

II. Leadership of Congregational Song

The goal of this course is to equip organists, keyboard players, guitarists and cantors (vocal leaders) who have little or no formal training in church music to lead congregational song with sensitivity, enthusiasm, confidence and joy. This is a course designed to integrate the students’ experience into a deeper and broader base of their skills in hymn playing, service accompaniment, and congregational leadership. Assignments include teaching and leading the group in singing music of many different types and styles.

III. The Hymnody of the Christian Church

There are two goals for this course:

 

• To establish a broad understanding of what constitutes the Church's song from textual, musical, liturgical and historical vantage points while understanding hymnody from a perspective beyond that of one's own denomination.
  
  
• To gain a practical working knowledge of the resources found in The Hymnal 1982 and Lutheran Book of Worship, their various appendices, supplements, and other related collections and supplements published subsequently to these two hymnals.
  
  

IV. Liturgy and Music: Foundations for Christian Worship

The title of this course is carefully crafted to reflect the crucial linkage between the liturgy and its music, both of which serve God and the people of God in worship. The worship of the Christian community is fundamentally the gathering of God's people, prompted by the Holy Spirit, centered on the proclamation of the Word of God and the celebration of the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. Music, especially congregational song, is integral to Christian worship, never an ornament. Liturgy without music is the exception that proves the rule.

This course will cover the four principal actions shaping the Eucharistic liturgy and the major Feast Days and sacraments of the Christian year.

V. Principles of Choral Leadership

This course is divided into two sections: basic conducting for church musicians, and voice training for choirs. The first is designed to insure that all students acquire basic conducting skills while including material that will challenge and refine the technique of experienced conductors. The second is in vocal pedagogy and is based on the belief that all singers can improve by understanding their instrument and learning proper vocal technique.

VI. Teaching New Music to the Congregation

This course awakens an awareness of the importance of teaching new music to the congregations and provides the student with necessary skills. Musical leaders learn to engage their congregation's attention through introducing a variety of music, and inspiring participation until the congregants are able to sing the selection well enough to have joy in their achievement. After the first few sessions, classes are devoted primarily to students' practice teaching their colleagues, a course requirement.

VII. Resources for an Effective Music Ministry

Very practical in nature, this course looks at the situation we work in with congregations and worship committees, and at the help we need for our jobs, local resources, methods of communication, networks, and collegial assistance. It also covers practical concerns such as simplifying music for particular situations, and developing skills in critical thinking and analysis to help in decision-making. It offers a tremendous wealth in resources for the local congregation.