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Elbows Up?

“Elbows up!”

Canadians have been encountering this phrase a lot over the last few months. As a Canadian living in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, I most regularly come face-to-face with the “Elbows up!” banner in the window of an independent bookstore across the street from my university campus. In the wake of tariffs that put numerous Canadian industries at enormous financial risk, “Elbows up!” signals a new kind of nationalism. It consists, for the average Canadian, of buying and consuming local products. What does that mean for congregational song? Should I stop singing the songs that come to me from non-Canadian sources, especially the songs that come from across the southern border?

 

Music Fosters Relationships

Music is an important means of fostering ecumenical and cross-cultural relationships. Whether I hear my fellow Mennonites singing a Catholic folk song on an average Sunday morning or Sinach’s “Waymaker” at a weekend retreat, I am frequently reminded of how music crosses denominational lines and national borders more in the last century than any previous era. Along with many other scholars who have studied this phenomenon, I marvel at how I can readily connect to the wider Church in 2025 through the songs that I sing with local communities of faith (Ingalls, Swijguisen Reigersberg, and Sherinian 2018; Johnson and Loepp Thiessen 2023; Berwig Silva 2025).

 

Critical Self-reflection

At the same time, forming healthy ecumenical and cross-cultural relationships entails a lot of critical self-reflection. On one hand, it is important to recognize that I cannot sing a song from another community or culture in my own context without altering it to some degree. For this reason, Katie Graber invites communities of faith to engage in the case-by-case work of singing songs from other cultures with appreciation, not appropriation. If I am singing a song from a culture that is not my own, it is not a question of whether I am altering it, but how I am altering it. What is the most ethical and just way to engage with the song (including the possibility of not singing it at all)?

On the other hand, it is important to recognize that even a singular culture or tradition is extremely diverse. In my view, the currently tenuous relationship between the United States and Canada is an opportunity for Canadians to engage in deeper reflection on this point. What do we mean when we speak of “Canadian congregational song”? I recently attended an event hosted by Becca Whitla and Anneli Loepp Thiessen that asked this very question. For a few days in February, we gathered with other scholars and practitioners of congregational song and shared the music of our local communities. We learned that we are writing and singing an enormous variety of music! We cannot capture Canada in a single song or genre, and I am grateful that, if nothing else, the Canadian impulse to step away from the influence of the United States in this season is illuminating the musical diversity that exists within our national borders. As John D. Roth observes, ecumenical relationships are a beautiful means of sharing gifts with one another, but “to the extent that ecumenical conversations tend to highlight and reinforce an identity rooted in distinctives, these exchanges…cultivate a false sense of identity” (Roth 2013, 10). Similarly, it may be tempting for Canadians to reduce themselves to a monolithic musical or cultural identity in comparison to the United States, but a season of inward reflection on what constitutes Canadian congregational song can foster awareness and appreciation of our diverse musical landscape.

 

I Wonder…

On behalf of Canadian churches, then, I wonder: How might we see this political moment as an opportunity to amplify the music of individuals and communities that has been overlooked until now? As a white settler Canadian, how might I engage more deeply with the music of Indigenous or immigrant communities? How might we view this season as one of localized creativity and collaboration so that we might make an even richer contribution to the wider Church in future seasons? While I lament the damage that the relationship between Canada and the United States is sustaining at this time, may it compel us—whether we find ourselves in Canada or elsewhere—not to neglect our relationships with all who live, work, and worship alongside us.

 

Mykayla Turner holds a Master of Sacred Music with a Liturgical Musicology concentration and a Master of Theological Studies. She obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance from Conservatory Canada. Currently, she is a PhD student in the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, ON. Apart from her academic work, she is an active church musician and liturgist. She also co-directs Ontario Mennonite Music Camp and chairs the team of volunteers who maintain Together in Worship, a curated collection of free worship resources from Anabaptist sources.

While reflecting on my experience as a graduate student in Dallas and preparing for work as a church musician, I wrote, “I just spent two years studying at a Methodist seminary, and in that environment, faculty and students spend a lot of time talking about being “called” to ministerial work. Honestly, I’m not very compelled by this idea. While it’s true that Perkins School of Theology was a great fit for me, I would have enjoyed working elsewhere. I seriously considered working in other fields and/or studying at other schools, but in the end, I earned a Master of Sacred Music degree at a seminary in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Regardless of how my “calling” fits into that equation, that choice was mine. By making that choice, I was able to visit Mennonite, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and non-denominational churches. I made Texan, Korean, Brazilian, Kenyan, Tanzanian, El Salvadorian, and Dominican friends. I ate new foods, saw new sights, and heard new ideas. Our choices curate our relationships and experiences. Some things are not within our control, but in many cases, we choose the stories that we hear. We don’t have the bandwidth to listen to all of them, so we must be selective. We also choose between dismissing those stories (perhaps privileging the sound of our own voices?) or allowing relationships to form out of them so that they shape how we think, speak, and act.”

Now, it strikes me that church musicians make similar choices.

This month, I started working for a Mennonite congregation in rural Ontario. I serve as a “worship coordinator,” meaning that I select music, develop service themes and orders, and equip congregants for various liturgical roles. The congregation selects repertoire from Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA’s most recent hymnal, Voices Together (Kauffman 2020). This hymnal made headlines in the world of congregational song for its richly diverse repertoire deriving from a variety of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural sources.

Despite the efforts of the editorial committee to carefully curate songs for inclusion in Voices Together, local congregations will not sing all of them (Johnson 2023, 132). Especially in Anabaptist and other Free Church traditions, congregational leaders make selective repertoire choices for their communities. The result is often a body of song that represents the congregation well, but it fails to account for the wider denomination in North America and worldwide. Is that a problem?

As Sarah Kathleen Johnson remarks in the preface to the Worship Leader Edition of Voices Together, “this book was created with the recognition that not every resource in it is the right fit for every community” (Johnson 2020, vii). However, Johnson also challenges leaders to allow “changing cultures within your community, neighborhood, and the wider world” to “inspire changes to your worship practice. For example, bilingual worship may develop if a new language group becomes prominent in your neighborhood or if older and younger generations in your community use different languages” (Johnson 2020, 2). Evidently, music leaders make critical choices about what to sing and whom to include in singing it.

When we sing, we both envision and enact a future for ourselves.

Just as it was not reasonable (or even possible) for me to listen and respond to all the stories I encountered while living in Dallas, it is not reasonable for a congregation to sing every song in a hymnal. Again, we must be selective, which means that different congregations and their leaders will make different choices, further resulting in different outcomes. Leaders must therefore ask themselves:

  1. What kind of community do I wish to create through song?
  2. What are its characteristics?
  3. Who does it include or exclude?

When we sing, we both envision and enact a future for ourselves. When we sing familiar songs, we might reinforce existing beliefs, norms, and boundaries—for better or for worse. When we sing songs that seem new or different to congregants, we might challenge beliefs, disrupt norms, and stretch boundaries—again, for better or for worse, although I maintain that it makes a good deal of sense for discerning leaders to shift the status quo to reflect the emerging realities of faith and life.

Do we succeed in these efforts? Earlier, I stated that, in addition to choosing if we will devote ourselves to hearing the stories of those around us, “we also choose between dismissing those stories (perhaps privileging the sound of our own voices?) or allowing relationships to form out of them so that they shape how we think, speak, and act.” As someone who works in a fairly homogeneous neighborhood, it feels like a daunting task to form relationships with members of the Black and Asian communities from which songs like “Total Praise,” and “Ososo (Come Now, O Prince of Peace)” derive. After all, the two BIPOC members of our congregation relocated to an urban area within two weeks of my start date. On the other hand, according to the most recent Canadian census, there are several Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking residents of our region, so it might be feasible to connect with these neighbors and, in doing so, foster deeper engagement with songs like “Perdón, Señor” and “Cantai ao Senhor (O Sing to the Lord).” In this new role, then, I will utilize my connections, recognizing both that I am not connected to everyone and that I am connected to more people than I realize. I’m also looking forward to The Hymn Society Annual Conference and other events that enable me to strengthen existing connections and form new ones with members of other communities. Several additional questions are instructive for this work:

  1. Whose stories do I choose to tell? Do we have a connection? Could we form one?
  2. When I tell the stories of other communities through music, am I muffling or distorting the sound? How much of that distortion is inevitable?
  3. What kind of research, relationships, and rehearsals must ensue for our songs (or the songs of others) to shape our future for the better?

With these considerations in mind, let us become critical, curious, and considerate leaders who make relationships the fruit (and the labor) of our liturgical choices.

 

 

Blogger Mykayla Turner is a Master of Sacred Music student attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Under the direction of Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel, her thesis research focuses on the role of music in rural congregations. Mykayla has completed graduate coursework at Conrad Grebel University College and Southern Methodist University in both theological studies and church music. She is an active church musician and liturgist in both Mennonite and ecumenical contexts. In 2023, Mykayla obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance.

 

Singing the Welcome of God: Strategies for Expansive Worship Language

Join pastor, musician, and author Slats Toole for a workshop on best practices and new ideas for incorporating expansive worship language into your ministry setting. Having worked with national organizations as well as congregations of ten, Slats is a skilled presenter with experience, knowledge, and passion for this subject. We hope you’ll be there!

 

Tuesday, January 7th, 2020

7PM to 8:30PM

Saint Andrew’s United Church
6036 Coburg Rd
Halifax, NS B3H 1Y9, Canada

Free and Open to the Public

 

Featuring: Slats Toole

Center for Congregational Song, Princeton, Presbyterian, Coleen Toole, Theatre

Slats Toole is a musician, writer, educator, preacher and theater director/sound designer based in New Jersey. They are an inquirer for ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and have had formative experience in Baptist (CBF and Alliance), United Methodist, Episcopal, and Reformed churches.  They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a Master of Divinity and Certificate in Theology, Women and Gender from Princeton Theological Seminary.  They serve on the Advisory Team for NEXT Church, and are the resident sound designer for the In[heir]itance project.
Slats’ Lenten poetry series has been compiled in the collection Queering Lent, and their work has also been published in “History of Hymns”, Call to Worship, and Sacramental Life.  Slats has led workshops on expansive language and queer theology (with a particular emphasis on gender identity) at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, Montreat Conference Center, and the NEXT Church National Gathering.  Slats’ work centers around creating space in the church where all are welcomed, embraced, and loved.

 

Free and Open to the Public
For questions about this event, email: brian@thehymnsociety.org