CMP & Interlude Songcrafting Retreat Schedule

Progressive Christian Songcrafting Retreat

November 16-18, 2017

Tentative Schedule (as of 9/22/17); We’ll continue to play with this depending on the number of participants and specific goals/hopes of those attending

Thursday, November 16

4:00-6:00 p.m. Check in, Meet and Greet (Participants eat dinner on their own)

6:00 p.m. Program Begins. Welcome, singing, prayer and opening description of event. What do we mean by “Progressive Christian Worship Music?” We’ll talk about the themes and theology of our worship songs. (Bryan Sirchio to lead).

7:00 p.m. Panel Discussion with all leaders and lots of time for Q & A and input from participants. “What are the key ingredients of a great Progressive Christian worship song?”

8:15 p.m. Break

8:30 p.m. Vespers

9:00 p.m. Good night (after hours fellowship opportunities for those who are up for going out, etc.)

Friday, November 17

9:00 a.m. Morning Centering.

The rest of this day will be all about creating opportunities for participants to write songs with the leaders and each other and to share songs of their own.

Registrants will be sent a pre-event message inviting them to share with us what you are most hoping to get out of this retreat. We are going to do our best to respond to the needs of the group and to provide the kinds of opportunities that will be most meaningful and helpful. Our overall goal is to help participants write better songs for worship that have great language and theology and liturgical usefulness.

We envision a combination of classes being offered as well as opportunites for participants to work on songs and share song with others. There will be options for class experiences with various leaders during the Friday morning segment during which the leaders share some of their best practices and gifts. By all means please let us know what would be most meaningful and helpful to you and we will be as responsive to your requests and suggestions as possible.

9:20—9:50 a.m. Class 1

9:55—10:25 a.m. Class 2

10:30—11:00 a.m. Class 3

11:00—11:15 a.m. Break

11:20—11:50 a.m. Class 4

11:55—12:25 a.m. Class 5

12:30 p.m. Lunch and free time (by now you will have several new friends with whom you’ll want to have lunch—or you may need some time to yourself. You may need a walk or a nap! Your choice.)

2:00 p.m. The afternoon will be about more opportunities for participants to share songs or song ideas, work on them alone or with others, and spend time with specific leaders of your choosing.

If you do not have songs to share, you can use your time to share an idea for a song, or the beginning of a song that is not yet finished, or ask for ideas from others. There is no pressure to offer anything polished. Just opportunities to offer what you’ve got or what you’re hoping to be able to grow into. If you do not want to play a song live you can bring a recording(s) to share. Here is the time frame for this second series of classes;

2:05—2:35 p.m. Class 1

2:40—3:10 p.m. Class 2

3:15—3:45 p.m. Class 3

3:45—4:00 p.m. Break

4:00—4:30 p.m. Class 4

4:35—5:05 p.m. Class 5

5:10—5:45 p.m. Chance to continue working on something of your own—co-write; incorporate feedback and rewrite; continue conversation with leaders in their classes, etc. Or just down time and a longer dinner if you prefer.

6:00 Dinner (on your own or with other participants)

7:00 p.m. Panel Discussion with full group

--what emerged during the day?

--what did the leaders notice?

--if time, more song sharing

9:00 p.m. Good night, after hours fellowship, etc.

Saturday, November 18

9:00 a.m. Morning Centering

9:20 a.m. We are going to deliberately keep things open for this morning’s focus, depending on what seems most needed and desired by the group. The leaders will each be prepared to offer a clinic of some kind. Ken could teach about improvisation for example. Richard could share his gifts with the Psalms. Bryan Johnson might offer a clinic on gospel piano playing, etc. If we go in this direction the participants will have time to experience 2 of the 5 clinics offered.

Another possibility will be to have a time of “open space” and let the participants decide what they would like to focus on. One of our participants is skilled in leading this kind of open group process and has offered his leadership to us in this capacity.

Another possibility would be for the group to choose a song or two that has been either created during the event or brought to the event and for us as a group to make a recording of this song (audio and video) that could be posted and shared. This could be a lot of fun and who knows what we might come up with.

And of course we could do a combination of all of these things! As mentioned, we are deliberately keeping it open at this point and will solicit input from those who are attending both before the retreat and during the retreat itself.

11:30 a.m. Closing Wrap Up and Prayer: CMP going forward, and hopefully one of those amazing spontaneous songs from Ken Medema!

12:00 p.m. Bye! Traveling blessings!