From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Fri May 30 2003 - 14:08:27 EDT
May 30, 2003 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The worship leaders of tomorrow are being groomed today at Calvin College
thanks to an innovative apprentice program that sees students spend an entire
school year learning to lead and support worship.
This August a dozen Calvin students will return to campus about two weeks
before the start of classes to train for their apprenticeships. Then, during
the school year, the chosen 12 will serve the Calvin campus as musicians,
dramatists, liturgists, artists, dancers, tech coordinators and hospitable
leaders in a variety of worship contexts. They will unleash their worship
know-how in chapel, residence hall and LOFT services, jazz vespers, campus-wide
celebrations and other events. And they will participate in the annual Calvin
Worship Symposium, sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
Each apprentice will receive a stipend of $1,000 per semester, to allow them to
focus on worship duties without seeking outside employment.
The students who have been selected are excited.
Vanessa Acosta of Grand Rapids is eager to use her gifts, including bilingual
singing, to help others to "know the joy of the Lord." Daryl Holmlund, from
Loveland, Colorado, looks forward to learning more about theologically sound
worship. And James Zwier of Holland wants to be numbered among "a new
generation of leaders who are committed to deep worship - nurtured in the
wisdom of tradition and voiced in a timeless yet contemporary way."
Such sentiments are gratifying to Calvin administrator Shirley Roels, director
of the Lilly Vocation Project at Calvin (funded by a $2 million grant from the
Lilly Endowment, Inc.), which includes the Worship Apprentice Program.
"The goal of the Worship Apprentice Program," says Roels, "is to create a
perceptive and astute subset of our graduates who both understand and value
healthy and deep worship experiences."
She adds: "When the team was picked, it was picked as a team with
complementary but varied talents. So some students are very much the up-front
liturgists, and some of them you'll never see - but thank goodness they're not
up front, or you wouldn't see the technology in the chapel service work."
The new apprentices are eager both to be mentored and to serve the Calvin
student body.
Kate Hugen of Norwalk, California, says: "I want to be able to use what I'm
learning to help others grow in their walk with Christ . . . as well as
building relationships with a group of people that I have never worked with."
Adds Erin Westmaas, a music theory and composition major from Marion, Michigan:
"It is quite likely that I will be doing some sort of music ministry after
college, and I hope that this program will better equip me in this."
Acosta, Holmlund, Hugen, Westmaas and Zwier Hugen join Dan Diephouse (Grand
Rapids), Tim Haig (Grand Rapids), Kent Hendricks (Lynden, Washington); Dean
Kladder (Holland), Lindsay Kevan (Twin Falls, Idaho), Sarah Steen (Holland) and
Nathan Sytsma (Rocky Mountain House, Alberta) as the 2003-2004 apprentices -
the second team of worship apprentices chosen under the funding of the Lilly
Vocation Project.
Kladder and Haig are repeating as worship apprentices and say the team is in
for an eventful year.
"I learned that the actual 'doing' of worship and ministry is much more
involved, in-depth and comprehensive than I could have ever imagined," says
Kladder, who will spend part of this summer studying worship reform in England.
"This is a whole new kind of learning experience. You learn from actually
doing, through failure, success, through times of trial and times of joy."
For pics of the students, see
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/vocation/students/worshipapprentices20032004pictures.doc
~with reporting by media relations staff writer Myrna Anderson
-end-
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