Leadership Program for MusiciansThe Leadership Program for Musicians (LPM) covers key areas in church music education, liturgical education and spiritual formation. It is open to musicians, pastors, choir members, interested lay persons, anyone of any age from any denomination.
The program seeks to respond to many concerns:
- Church musicians working in small churches struggle with new ways of doing things and new materials.
- Young people and others, who have the potential skills to be a congregation's musician, but need encouragement and support.
- Established musicians value an opportunity to gather and learn from one another and establish a network of support for their ministries.
- Pastors and laity with an interest in the music of the church need a boost to their worship lives.
The program can be taken in part or whole; in other words, you can take only the classes that meet your needs. However if all course requirements are met, the LPM Certificate in Church Music is awarded at the successful completion of the program.
Classes call on participants' imagination and creativity, asking them to explore the different opportunities music in worship presents, such as diverse ethnic repertoires and styles and music's role in evangelism, parish liturgy, and parish life. Attention is particularly given to the needs and ways of smaller churches.
The program's ultimate goals are to give participants an increased commitment to music ministry, and self worth as lay ministers, to improve their musical, pastoral, and leadership skills, and to expand their own and their parishes' visions of the variety of music and leadership practices.
LPM is an ecumenical program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the Episcopal Church (ECUSA), The Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM), and the United Church of Christ Musicians' Association.
For more information, go to the Leadership Program for Musicians website.
Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival
The Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival features an outstanding faculty of artists and teachers who guide gifted high school and college students from around the country through a month of intensive musical study and performance. Open to students of all faiths, the Academy & Festival is committed to strengthening and expanding the Lutheran heritage of excellence in music.
For more information, go to the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival website.
Graduate Degrees in Church Music
This is a partial list of institutions offering master's and doctorate degrees in church / sacred / liturgical music:
Associations, Guilds, and Societies