| Worship Fair 2011: "Making the Ordinary Extraordinary" Friday-Saturday, February 18-19 Arkansas’s annual Worship Fair will take place at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Little Rock. The theme for this year’s event is “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary.” Participants will learn to seek and find God in all situations and, particularly, to plan and perform meaningful worship and preaching during the “Ordinary Time” that stretches between Epiphany and Lent and between Pentecost and Advent. Clinicians include John Thornburg, Anna Laura Page, and Gail Wells. John Thornburg John Thornburg is a fourth generation Methodist minister whose family members have served over 40 appointments under 30 bishops in 10 states from 1899 to the present. After graduation from Perkins School of Theology, John served four parishes in Dallas, including an inner city cooperative parish. That cooperative work resulted in the revitalization of six congregations, as well as the creation of a network of ministries that served 30,000 people per year. In 2001, after 22 years in parish ministry, John pursued a new calling by starting an itinerant ministry of song leading and worship consultation called “A Ministry of Congregational Singing.” (www.congregationalsinging.com) He now travels the country leading congregations in singing, and consulting with churches about how to enrich the singing of the congregation. He has led singing in local churches from Boston to Berkeley, at youth gatherings and retirement centers, and at both regional and national conventions. John is a published poet whose hymn and anthem texts appear in 15 different hymnals, hymnal supplements, single author collections as well as octavos from six publishers. In January of 2005, John was invited by the mission director of the new United Methodist mission in Cameroon, West Africa, to assist the 20 Cameroonian United Methodist churches in the production of their first hymnal/worship book. That project was completed in May of 2009, but John continues to travel to Cameroon to provide encouragement to musicians and pastors. John is an adjunct instructor in preaching at Perkins School of Theology, and a small group facilitator for the Institute for Clergy and Congregational Excellence in Austin, TX. He and his wife, Beth, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, live in Dallas. John will lead the opening song service on Friday evening. On Saturday he will lead two workshops: About “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Preaching through the Dog Days,” John writes, “Sometimes it seems that Ordinary Time will never end, and it's hard to envision what to do with 26 weeks of Sundays without any high holy days. But the Bible is a gold mine, so let's do some excavating together to see what the possibilities are. Adam Hamilton isn't smarter than you; he just knows different things. Let's find out what you know and what you're passionate about.” “Beyond Filling in the Blanks: Restoring Joy to Worship Planning” he describes this way: “If worship planning feels like drudgery, something is wrong. Let's look at how Sunday morning can be alive with possibilities for getting God's awesome power out into the sanctuary. Worship ought to be a place for 'God sightings'. We'll explore what it means to be open to spontaneity and surprise.” Anna Laura Page Anna Laura Page received a B.M. degree in vocal music education with a concentration in piano, and a M.M. in music theory with a concentration in organ from the University of Kentucky. Active as a composer, clinician and organist, she served on the Music Committee of the Southern Baptist 1991 Hymnal Committee. For several consecutive years, she received the ASCAP Standards Award. Mrs. Page taught organ as an adjunct faculty member at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and theory in addition to organ as an adjunct faculty member at Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina. She served as director of the Austin Peay Community Children’s Chorus in Clarksville, Tennessee for three years. Mrs. Page has served as Handbell Music Editor for Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. Publications she authored include choral works for children, youth, and adults as well as compositions for handbells, organ, and piano. She is married to Dr. Oscar C. Page, President of Austin College in Sherman, Texas. At Worship Fair, she will lead reading sessions for choral music (including the music for the next Conference Children’s Choir Camp) and keyboard music. Gail Wells Gail Wells is a member of St. Paul UMC in Little Rock. Several years ago Gail Wells headed up the monumental task of making new stained glass windows for the Sanctuary at St. Paul. She worked with an architect, an artist, and a group of neophyte glass workers. The results, seventeen years later, are awe-inspiring, beautiful, and totally amazing. Gail will offer a special class at Worship Fair 2011: an introduction to stained glass. Although there won’t be time to complete a project, Gail will take class members through the steps of how the project is designed, how the glass is selected and cut, how the frame is made, how to foil and solder the glass, and how to complete a project. Gail has a passion for glass and will inspire you to perhaps take these ideas to your home church. Gail will teach the class twice during the day. (Unfortunately, because the church has no elevator, the stained glass workshop at St. Paul is not handicapped accessible.) This event is sponsored by the Arkansas Chapter of the Fellowship together with the Arkansas Conference. |
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Worship Fair 2011 PICTURES |