Email: Academy 42 Worship Welcome
From: Beth A. Richardson and Don E. Saliers (via Kathy Norberg)
Date: December 26, 2022

The risen Christ yearns to be among us as a community of shared discipline and grace-filled worship. He promises
to be present around font, book, and table. Your part is to include yourself in that community of open hands, hearts
and minds for the sake of Love.

-Daniel T. Benedict, Patterned by Grace: How Liturgy Shapes Us

Dear Academy #42 Community,

In just a few weeks we will be coming together in community, so I join the other members of the Leadership Team in welcoming you as we anticipate this grace-filled time. The Academy is an extraordinary journey for all of us yearning to go deeper into the heart of God. Our time together will be shaped by daily prayer and worship.

I’m writing to introduce you to our worship leadership team and to the Academy worship experience. I will be serving as the Worship Coordinator for our Academy. I have just retired from The Upper Room where I served on the staff for 36 years, most recently as the Dean of The Upper Room Chapel. I’m a writer, photographer, musician, liturgy nerd, and a clergyperson in the Mountain Sky Conference of The United Methodist Church.

At our upcoming Academy, we will be blessed by the gifts of Don Saliers, our Theologian, who will coordinate our music for the services and will play for the services each day. Don is a theologian, a musician, a teacher, a pastor, and a scholar of liturgics. He retired from Chandler School of Theology in 2007. Don is currently working on a book about the Psalms. In addition to his 15 books on the relationship between theology and worship practices, he co-authored A Song to Sing, a Life to Live with his daughter Emily Saliers, a member of the folk-rock music duo Indigo Girls.

We come from many diverse traditions and experiences which reflect the breadth of styles of worship in God’s church. Academy worship connects us with the prayer and song of God’s saints from across time and culture. The worship liturgies are formed from the wisdom and practice of monastic tradition. We join in Night Prayer which quiets us and sends us into the great silence, and we gather for Morning Prayer to break the silence with joyful song and prayers of the people. We come together each afternoon for Eucharist and a brief homily. We trust in the power of liturgy to form us individually and as a community.

The three times of worship each day are not the lengthy services that many of us are accustomed to on Sundays, but are designed to frame the day in praise and prayer. The Upper Room Worshipbook will be our primary resource. We will also use Zion Still Sings and a binder of supplemental music. During our first week together, members of the leadership team will serve as homilists, celebrants, and liturgists. You will be given the opportunity to offer yourselves for worship leadership beginning with our second week together. I invite you to let me know of your desire to share gifts you have in creative praise, song, instruments, or sacred movement.

We are praying for you and looking forward to meeting you and beginning our journey together. Blessings on you in these coming weeks and welcome to Academy #42.

Blessings,

Beth A. Richardson and Don E. Saliers

P.S. Please do send a note if you are interested in joining in the music during worship. We’ll be inviting your participation when we gather in January!