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Singing the Congregation

How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community

Monique M Ingalls author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:8th Nov '18

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Singing the Congregation cover

Contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship itself. Author Monique M. Ingalls argues that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations, or "modes of congregating". Through exploration of five of these modes--concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations--Singing the Congregation reinvigorates the analytic categories of "congregation" and "congregational music." Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology and congregational studies, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice--in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as "worship." "Congregational music-making" is thereby recast as a practice capable of weaving together a religious community both inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a powerful way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The interactions among the congregations reveal widespread conflicts over religious authority, carrying far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.

Monique Ingalls's Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community is a landmark publication, inviting vitally diverse readings. * Evanthia Patsiaoura, European Journal of Musicology *
This study has wide-ranging implications for how to study religious mobilization and posturing beyond the strict, traditional institutional borders. * Ryan David Shelton, New Books Network *
In highlighting the role contemporary worship music plays in congregations, she delivers a timely challenge to North American evangelicalism to reflect on its own culture and to assess its effectiveness not solely on the basis of relevance or reach potential, but on how the methods used influence the message—a challenge that can extend beyond music to many other aspects of the church. * Niklaas W. Schalm, Didaskalia *
This monograph is a highly dense and material-rich examination of what the author defines as 'contemporary worship music', partly following emic language, partly prudently discussing alternative wordings for this vast and transforming field of evangelical Christian music during and beyond religious services. * Matthew C. Bagger, Northport, Alabama, Religion *
[T]his sensitive, thorough study offers a much-needed extension of the discourses on congregational Christianity and opens up many opportunities for further discussions of contemporary evangelical congregations. * Maria S. Guarino, University of Virginia, Reading Religion *
Ingalls' descriptions of evangelical visual piety with regard to images in worship is fascinating, especially her interviews with the creators of amateur worship videos who explain their motivations and aesthetic values...Ingalls' contribution in this book is a substantive theoretical examination of how congregations, aided by CWM, arise in increasingly diverse spaces. * John MacInnis, Dordt University, In All Things *

ISBN: 9780190499631

Dimensions: 160mm x 236mm x 23mm

Weight: 596g

272 pages