Learning Weekend: Songwriting

Now that the tour is over, many people are wondering how to start manifesting the change within communities and cities, the Church and the world. I happen to be a songwriter. I care about the songs we sing. I am interested in the songs of peace movements. In my highest imagination, our expression and the songs we sing, can be the fruit of and catalyst for God’s work and justice in the world.

Maybe you desire to see songs calling people into the fullness of God’s purpose and heart, especially in a time such as this. Did you ever consider that your own community could be a starting place, and maybe a catalyst for deeper change? if you desire to grow and deepen your own theology of worship among your community…whether you have never imagined yourself ever writing a song, or you are a seasoned writer…whether you like hymns or poetry or classic rock…Do you desire to connect the things going on in the world, your concerns and hopes, with the songs you sing?

Consider hosting a learning weekend. Over the course of several gatherings and a few days, maybe we can deepen our faith as it concerns worship. Maybe we can invite the Holy Spirit to inspire songs that will call us to be agents of change, and remind us of the fullness of God’s heart for all people around the world. Maybe we can explore in joy and humility and learn new practices that help us deepen our own faith.

As Brian, Linnea and I debriefed a bit, one idea was to add a songwriting workshop to the EMC gathering. Many people were encouraged by the song and worship experience at the gatherings, but the next step is for communities to rise up and create themselves! I have been teaching songwriting workshops for nearly 10 years. I would love to come and introduce some tools to begin, and facilitate some collaboration among you. I desire greatly to see new expression that helps the Church move forward in the purposes of God.

If you are interested in exploring this possibility for your community, please email tracy @ restorationvillage.com.

Tracy Invited to Present at Envision 08!

As I mentioned before, I definitely want to unpack the fullness of the Spring tour a little bit more before plowing into the next thing, but this is really exciting. Envision is a gathering at Princeton of some amazing people, some I have met, some I have not. I met a woman named Lisa Harper at one of the last EMC gathering, hosted by the Latino Leadership Circle in the Bronx. Lisa heads up New York Faith and Justice and also is facilitating the creative teams at Envision. So, I was thrilled she invited me to be part and share some songs in the plenary sessions. If you’re curious, check out the website. If you are a college student, you can apply to receive credit for attending! More to come…

The End of Tour

Well, we made it through. Actually, we not only made it, but we grew and saw hope. It was incredible. And as we parted ways after our last event together in Goshen, there was a bit of celebration, a bit of sadness, and lot’s of hugs. Of course I realize this doesn’t bookmark the end of some big event, but maybe it is an exhale. I (Tracy) practice Bikram yoga. It is a series of postures with rest in between each posture. Some of the postures are quite challenging and get the muscles twitching. However, exercise scientist have studied the body and found it is actually working the hardest and gaining the most benefit from the practice during the resting periods of the last two postures. In other words, if you don’t rest, you don’t get all of the benefits!

Brian, Linnea, Eric and I were talking about this over milkshakes in Goshen. We all want to reap the benefits, and hope others do as well. For those of you who caught one of the gatherings, do not forget to go to everythingmustchange.org and start adding content. For those of you who don’t know about the site, it won’t be officially launched until the fall, but it is just some of the fruit that has come from the relationships and connections during this tour.

There is rumor we might be doing a few Everything Must Change events in 2009…If you think your community might want to host, please contact Linnea Nilsen-Capshaw at info@deepshift.org. Thank you all who participated! I will be posting some deeper and much more detailed reports and thoughts on the tour, but wanted to at least start here. Brian posted some thoughts as well on his website, brianmclaren.net.