Mission Yearbook: Drumming brings spirit and connection at Worship & Music Conference

Daniel Otu learned to play the djembe drum growing up in Ghana. At this year’s Worship & Music Conference offered by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, he taught more than 30 students what drumming can do for them as well.

“For me, drumming refreshes your soul. It brings people together and bridges every race, every creed, every religion — no matter what,” he said following a class session. “It’s a workout, and it builds your blood flow.”

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A 40-minute African drumming class can be quite a workout for students and for their teacher, Daniel Otu. (Photo by Alex Simon)

Otu first came to the United States from Ghana in 2003 to attend the Worship & Music Conference. He was invited back in 2005 and 2008 to lead classes in African drumming. Since moving to the U.S. and making his home in Douglasville, Georgia, where he works as an insurance underwriter, he has continued his drumming and is the proud father of two children.

Otu arranged students in a large semicircle in the classroom on the grounds of Montreat Conference Center. Even with the windows and doors closed, the drumming can be heard across a large swath of Montreat.

Otu reviewed a couple of drumming patterns he taught the class earlier in the week and discussed their appearance in worship. “They asked me, ‘Can you play something while people are leaving?’” he told the class. “But people stayed and listened.”

His classroom style this week is to use familiar hymns from the Glory to God hymnal and apply patterns the students know to those hymns. This day, students are alternating between “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love,” which is based on a folk tune from Ghana.

“I’ll play and you follow me. You have to keep the flow going,” he said during the first time through “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Periodically, Otu would stand up and move among the students, clapping and singing and air-drumming, always encouraging.

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The African djembe produces a pleasant sound (photo by Alex Simon).

After a few times through “Jesu, Jesu,” he had drummers “bring it down a little” by asking half of them to quit playing for a verse. After that, the other drummers took a break, too.

When Otu joins the drumming, he bangs his drum forcefully to augment the students’ rhythm. The typical ending to the hymns was eight straight beats on the drum followed by a satisfying flourish.

“I’ve liked learning the rhythms and having the tactile experience of touching the drum,” said Daryl Mullee of First Presbyterian Church in Gainesville, Florida. “It’s holy and spiritual, kind of an awakening.”

“I feel a real connection with the other drummers. It’s a visceral feeling,” Mullee said. “It gets to my heart and soul, and it doesn’t require age or gender. Anyone can play.”

After a break — for many students, the drumming proved to be quite the workout — Otu returned to “Jesu, Jesu. “I know it’s difficult to sing and play at the same time, but it helps you to keep up your rhythm,” he told students. “When you are playing, let your body move. It helps your nerves.”

Indeed, as more students sang along, they stayed together more readily.

“It keeps me young,” he said once the 40-minute class had concluded. Students have expressed their appreciation, telling Otu, “it’s awesome” “it’s great,” “it’s different” and “we love it.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Laura Bryan, Manager, Financial Aid for Service, Interim Unified Agency       
Lucy Bryant, Online Service Client Relations Specialist, Operations, The Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we pray for those who long for your acceptance and grace in their lives. Give us the courage to step out where you send us and to respond with compassion and love. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Worship & Music Conference opens with inspiring word and song

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Those attending Week 1 of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians' Worship & Music Conference were clearly pleased to have arrived at Montreat Conference Center (photo by Alex Simon).

Demonstrating the kind of innovative and thoughtful worship that keeps people returning again and again to the Worship & Music Conference put on annually by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the 650 or so people gathered on the first day of the first week of the event in June in Anderson Auditorium at Montreat Conference Center sang beautifully and listened intently to testimony taken from Colossians 3:12–17, the central Scripture for this year’s gathering with the theme “Clothed in Love.”

Singer and songwriter David LaMotte offered up his song “Just One Candle,” with the recurring theme, “And all the darkness in the world can’t extinguish the light of just one candle.”

Youth played a prominent role during worship, reading Scripture and liturgy written by  the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, the PC(USA)’s Associate for Worship.

And as might be expected from a large gathering of musicians and clergy, the hymn-singing was glorious. Hymns were accompanied by varying combinations of piano, organ, drum, guitar and handbells.

A worship highlight was brief testimony on six qualities found in the Colossians passage: Compassion by Dr. Tom Trenney, the conference’s co-service musician; Kindness by LaMotte; Humility by Gambrell; Meekness by Ana Hernández, this year’s Routley Lecturer; Patience by Dan Trabue, the conference’s artist in residence; and Love by Dr. Margaret Aymer, the conference preacher.

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Dr. Tom Trenney not only played the organ during Sunday's worship service, but also offered one of six testimonies (photo by Alex Simon).

Trenney donned a green sweater, then talked about his “spiritual superhero,” Fred Rogers. “I learned a lot about the gospel from Mister Rogers before I heard it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,” Trenney said. Rogers used to tell the story of eight Special Olympics sprinters who helped a hurt competitor up and finished the race together arm in arm, all of them tied for first place. Rogers noted that spectators clapped and cheered for a long time, “and we know why: What really matters is helping others win, too,” Trenney said. “Each of us has the opportunity every day to change course and clothe ourselves in compassion, like those children did that day.”

“When I was young, I didn’t distinguish between nice and kind,” LaMotte said. “As an adult, those have come to be very different words.” Being nice can mean being polite and not upsetting people. “I have come to understand that kindness often means making waves,” LaMotte said. “I’m thinking nice is not what Jesus was going for. Kindness is not a feeling. It’s a way of treating people.”

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Musician and songwriter David LaMotte, at left, offered up his song "Just One Candle" during worship on Sunday (photo by Alex Simon)

Gambrell recalled buying some new tennis shoes a day before a long hike that was part of a pilgrimage, holding the offending sneakers high for everyone to see. “Something about these shoes did not agree with my left foot,” he said. “I had to use crutches to lead the Easter vigil at my church.” But even more humbling was sharing that dusty roadway with his fellow pilgrims, many of whom had “left their own crutches behind, praying for God’s healing ministry.”

While in graduate school, Aymer moved from New York to Atlanta, where she knew “not a soul,” and so Aymer, a single woman in her 30s, placed an ad on match.com, which was answered by “a strange-looking Frenchman” named Laurent. The two had their first date on Sept. 9, 2001, and spent four hours in a café talking about New York. After the terror attacks two days later, the first person in Atlanta to check on her well-being was Laurent. When she saw him, he was wearing an “I love New York” T-shirt with a matching hat. “That was my husband,” she said. “He wore his heart not only on his sleeve, but on his chest and his head.”

Last fall, Laurent died suddenly in his sleep. “He believed how we clothe ourselves can show our love to our neighbors,” Aymer said. She herself sported a stole Sunday that said, “Clothed in Love.”

Sunday’s blessing and charge included these words: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothes yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Beverly Bewley, Customer Service Representative, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Teresa Bidart, Mission Specialist, Self-Development of People, Interim Unified Agency      

Let us pray:

Loving God, you who gave us eternal life, you who shares the power of your love through others, you who amaze us when we expect the worst, help us to love others as you have taught us to love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Nearly 1,400 gather for Worship & Music Conference, with the theme ‘Clothed in Love’

This year’s Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference, “Clothed in Love,” got underway at Montreat Conference Center in June with opening worship. It was a moment that a dedicated team of planners and organizers worked hard to bring about, and they were eager to greet the nearly 1,400 people who were set to arrive June 15 and on June 22 for Week 2 of the gathering.

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Over the next two weeks, Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, North Carolina, will welcome nearly 1,400 people to the Presbyterian Association of Musicians' Worship & Music Conference (photo courtesy of Montreat Conference Center)

“Worship is so important to our identity, and this is where we come to be renewed, get creative ideas and be inspired to lead our churches,” said the Rev. Elizabeth Deibert, who serves alongside Amy Cerniglia as co-director of the Worship & Music Conference, the largest annual gathering of Presbyterians. “This is the conference I’ve always found the most beneficial in my ministry.”

About one-fourth of those attending were under the age of 20, Cerniglia noted, and many of them helped lead worship each day of the conference. Young people are “the future of church music and worship life in the church,” she said, and conferees had ample opportunity to witness “weaving younger church members into worship.”

“Children and youth know they belong when they’re asked to be leaders,” Deibert said.

The co-directors served together on the staff of Peace Presbyterian Church in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, before Deibert’s retirement. Cerniglia is now the interim congregational accompanist at First Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, and is communications coordinator for the Covenant Network of Presbyterians. Deibert is now PAM’s development manager.

On Monday, June 16, — traditionally the night of an organ concert — organist and composer Tom Trenney and guitarist and singer David LaMotte performed both individually and together.

The Rev. Kendra Buckwalter Smith and Dr. Eric Wall led a first call community for pastors and musicians who are serving on the staff of a faith community for the first time. This year, meet-up gatherings were offered to young adults, those who belong to small churches,  BIPOC conferees and LGBTQIA+ attendees.

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The Rev. Elizabeth Deibert, at left, and Amy Cerniglia are co-directors of this year's Worship & Music Conference (photo by Alex Simon).

By popular demand, both drumming and dancing classes were offered this year, and both were incorporated in daily worship.

Attendees have donated more than $2,000 to the Presbyterian Giving Catalog’s Links of Love activity to purchase sewing machines for Ugandans who need them. “Because we are 'clothed in love,'” Cerniglia said, “we wanted to make sure we are clothing the world as well as ourselves.”

Rides on golf carts were offered to people who need transportation at hilly Montreat Conference Center.

This was “a big year for the fine arts,” she said, including a class on understanding Eastern church iconography.

The conference featured the preaching of Dr. Margaret Aymer, vice president for Academic Affairs at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, the PC(USA)’s Associate for Worship, penned the liturgy.

“Margaret has come to this conference and rung handbells,” Deibert noted. “She says this is her favorite conference, and she was hoping for the opportunity to preach.”

The co-directors praised Montreat Conference Center staff and contractors for all their work since Hurricane Helene’s devastation last fall. “We were so impressed and grateful for the restoration work, and for all the donations that made that possible,” Cerniglia said.

PAM’s Worship & Music Conference by the numbers:

• 1,387 people registered for one of the two weeks. About 86% of those conferees were Presbyterians, while 101 Methodists registered. Thirty-nine states were represented, with South Carolina (333) and North Carolina (290) topping the list.
• 574 conferees attend churches with 200 to 500 in worship each week, while 429 are in churches with 100 to 200 worshipers present. 165 conferees worship alongside 50-100 others, and 120 are in churches with 50 or fewer in worship each week. 91 conference attendees are in churches with an average of 500 or more in worship.
• Ninety-five percent of conferees were white. About 2% were Black or African American, with 1.3% Asian or Asian American and another 1.3% Hispanic, Latino, Latina or Latinx.
• After the 25% who were under 20 years old, the next largest group was people 70 and older, who were 20% of conferees. About 17% were 60 to 69, with about 13% 40 to 49. 333 were first-time attendees.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Serrita Bell, Director of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation
Barbara Betts, Manager, Presbyterian Distribution Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation 

Let us pray:

Lord God, thank you for the growth of your church and the millions of lives touched with your love. Be with them and their leaders as they holistically proclaim the gospel through witness, service and advocacy. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.