This week’s episode was sponsored by Simply Liturgical Music. Click the show notes to learn more and to access an exclusive offer just for Ministry Monday listeners!

Starting this week we are introducing a multi-episode series focusing on this exact topic. For the next several weeks, Ministry Monday is offering a series on The Singing Priest: how to encourage singing with clergy; providing resources for clergy to develop confidence in their singing for things like the Exsultet at Easter Vigil; and, of course, developing the relationship between us as pastoral musicians, and the clergy that lead and guide us all.

We’re starting the Singing Priest series with an episode from the Ministry Monday archives. It was the most popular episode of 2018 here on the podcast, and it’s a great place to start.

This week’s episode was sponsored by Simply Liturgical Music. Click the show notes to learn more and to access an exclusive offer just for Ministry Monday listeners!

Today’s episode is more NPM-focused than a typical episode, but for all the right reasons: NPM’s annual Members’ Meeting is next Monday, September 20. The annual Members’ Meeting is NPM’s State of the Union, if you will, celebrating the wins of the association from the last 12 months, including celebrating NPM’s biggest awards: the Pastoral Musician of the Year Award and Jubilate Deo award.

I asked to sit down with Jennifer Kluge, NPM’s Executive Director and my boss. I wanted to hear about her first year so far as Executive Director, including her first NPM convention. She was kind enough to oblige.

At this point it goes without saying, but the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to re-envision so much of what we do in ministry. While many of us are re-starting choirs to an extent and returning to the planning of normal music ministry life, the disruption of our normal habits and resources may allow a space to evaluate what our parish needs right now and for the next stage of ministry.

This was the mindset from which I started our episode today.