About W. Zachary Taylor

Zachary is a worship curator, musician, and worship & music specialist at Augsburg Fortress/sparkhouse. He is part of Atonement Church (ELCA) in Bloomington, MN, where he serves as worship leader/music director. A native of Bay City, MI, Zachary’s worship vocation began on the pipe organ at age 13. Now he specializes in both modern and old-school worship music, writes songs, produces, and records. He has a passion for curating creative and collaborative worship that encourages deeper relationships with Christ.

Waiting for Christmas

by W. Zachary Taylor | December 22, 2011

As we swiftly flow from Advent into Christmas, there is limited time for reflection on the worship of the last four weeks. The meetings to evaluate how things worked, how people were affected, and what kind of transformation occurred in our community will take place next month. But now, as I take down the elements of the waiting room, the memories and conversations are still alive in this place:

Shocked reactions of people being handed a birth announcement that reads, “Congratulations, you’re expecting!” The snarky comments of white-haired women were definitely more humorous than the glares and “I don’t think so!” responses from fathers of teenage daughters.
The pastor openly and adamantly declaring from the pulpit, “You know what I learned from watching a pot of water and waiting for it to boil? That I hate to wait! I want worship to start on time. Oh, that was brutal.”
People rolling their eyes at being invited into the worship space by number, and making comparisons with the DMV.
The guy who asked, “Next week, can we watch paint dry?”

Then, there are the conversations about having a new understanding of Advent, making connections to the worship we might practice during our everyday waits, and genuine gratitude for the time and thoughtfulness that went into planning and implementing it all.

Applying the philosophy of worship curation in our context led to Advent worship that was engaging, revelatory, and transformational. It gave talented, artistic people opportunities to participate in ways that did not exist here before. It strengthened our faith community and invited the neighborhood around us to join our waiting. It also gave the musical groups a better opportunity to prepare for Christmas.

You may remember from my first blog post, that Advent has not meant much to people in our community. Well, that was because, in previous years, the last three Sundays in Advent were filled with Christmas programs of some kind. Musical preparation for actual Christmas services then became an afterthought. We often would cherry-pick from the various musical numbers that we had done over the previous weeks and musically regurgitate them in our Christmas services. To me, that was fundamentally messed up, but that was the tradition. By curating Advent worship this year, Christmas worship is organically becoming unique and meaningful.

With fewer Christmas programs during Advent this year, our musical groups have created new arrangements of our favorite Christmas hymns/songs. Our Multimedia Arts team is working to bring the outside in by projecting a starry sky on the sanctuary ceiling. I am particularly excited about processing to the outdoor winter garden and placing Jesus in the nativity set as we sing “Silent Night” during our candlelight worship gathering.

Having waited patiently (and impatiently), we now flow into Christmas with hope, gratitude, and excitement for the arrival of the much-anticipated Savior.

How have your community’s Advent practices influenced your planned celebration of Christmas this year?

Image © W. Zachary Taylor

Categories: Curation

Experience Advent (part 3)

by W. Zachary Taylor | December 2, 2011

Zach Taylor has been sharing his creative team’s ongoing process of curating Advent 2011 using ideas and content on Clayfire.org. This is his third post. Read part one and part two.

This year’s Advent worship has truly become the work of the people… liturgy in its most literal sense.

If you read part 2 of my Experience Advent posts, you may recognize that sentence. Little did I know how true that statement would become, and how true-blue the members of our faith community really are.

Through the Advent planning process, our Multimedia Arts team has been incredibly creative and supportive. Our Audio engineer even offered the free use of four LED stage lights with which we would introduce blue color to the worship space—a liturgical color new to our community.

A few weeks ago, I asked the head of our Altar Committee not to put up the purple paraments this year for Advent, explaining that we would be using the new color blue this season. She was a little taken aback at first, but then asked me if she should order blue candles for the Advent wreath. Then it was my turn to be taken aback—by her acceptance and willingness to make that change. And it didn’t end there.

The following week, she showed up during the worship team’s music rehearsal to ask if she could make a blue skirt for the Advent wreath. She did. It is beautiful.

After worship that weekend, someone else came up to me and asked how long ago the Advent color changed to blue. She almost seemed embarrassed that we had not switched to blue before now, and then offered to make new blue paraments and a stole for the pastor. She did. They are beautiful.

I arrived at church last Saturday to find yet another member decorating the Christmas tree with new blue ornaments that unexpectedly appeared in the supply of decorations this year. Again, beautiful.

The inside of the building radiated with new color and renewed enthusiasm to participate on the first Sunday of Advent!

The irony? The blue lights we ordered for the Winter Garden outside did not arrive until Monday. Those outdoor lights were the impetus for us to make the switch to blue on the inside of the building.

After we put up the new outdoor lights, I’m thinking that we might have to shift our theme for this weekend to Advent 2: Even Bluer. Even Better.

Or not.

Images © W. Zachary Taylor

Categories: Curation

Experience Advent (part 2)

by W. Zachary Taylor | November 11, 2011

Zach Taylor is sharing his creative team’s ongoing process of curating Advent 2011 using ideas and content on Clayfire.org. This is his second post. Read post one here.

It often gets dangerous when our team collaborates on worship design. The danger isn’t from lack of funds or interest or acceptance of new ideas (all of which are issues at times). The danger comes from how one creative idea gives energy to another idea… and another. Suddenly, we are buried in work that we cannot accomplish well.

In our first Advent planning meeting, we decided to take a cue from Ryan Marsh’s Clayfire Advent Worship Series, What Happens When God Comes Close, and transform part of our building into an Advent waiting room.

Even in the excitement of curating the waiting room for our community, it seemed like we were missing an opportunity to include our neighborhood in the same kind of experience we are creating indoors. Within 24 hours, a vision for an outdoor Advent/Christmas/Winter garden developed.

Transforming our Summer outdoor worship space into this garden makes use of our amazing courtyard, invites our neighborhood into the spirit of the season, and provides a place for our faith community to further wait, long for, and anticipate the arrival of Jesus.

A nativity scene without the baby, a jumbo-sized Advent wreath on the building that lights up in four blue sections, a faux campfire for the shepherds and animals to gather around, ambient music playing in the background, and seating to sit and take it in are all elements to this outdoor station. Beyond that, this garden taps into the passions of a LOT more people who are becoming involved in its creation. Random people. People who love Christ. People who want to participate. People who have creative ideas.

When we named the theme Experience Advent: There’s Worship in the Waiting we could not have envisioned what is coming to be: many ideas, many hands. The danger we experience in collaboration is a beautiful thing. This year’s Advent worship has truly become the work of the people… liturgy in its most literal sense.

Categories: Curation

Experience Advent

by W. Zachary Taylor | October 28, 2011

Zach Taylor will be sharing his creative team’s process of curating Advent 2011 using ideas and content on Clayfire.org. This is his first post.

A group of friends around a dining table. A package of graham crackers. A bottle of wine. Conversation about Jesus, his birth, and the anticipation of his coming.

It might sound like the latest episode of Extreme Communion: House-Church Edition, but it was actually the setting of the Advent worship planning meeting for our faith community. Scott (Pastor), Linda (Youth Ministry Coordinator), and I (Worship Leader) gathered at my house to conceptualize and talk through how we might engage our community in Advent this year.

Over the last decade, Advent has become a wreath with candles in it. That’s it. That’s Advent: we light candles in a wreath–and often almost forget to do it every week because it has a very low intrinsic value. It means little to most people. We have failed to acknowledge the beauty of waiting, the joy of imagination, and the excitement of anticipation.

We decided to change that.

Our conversation swirled around how to teach our community what Advent is without being condescending to the older members who may remember, and still bring our younger generations into a place of worshipful waiting. As we were looking for ways to engage people and communicate this message, we looked at the Clayfire Advent worship series, What Happens When God Comes Close, curated by Ryan Marsh.

The idea of creating a waiting room in which to begin worship every week seemed exciting and achievable in our context…both spatially and financially. With no budget to speak of, that is something that we can realistically do. Beginning worship in the waiting room, moving into the sanctuary for a community conversation, and interacting in litany form (that encompasses singing “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” and lighting the formerly meaningless wreath) should be a great start to our Advent worship gatherings each week.

This year’s Advent theme: Experience Advent: There’s worship in the waiting.

View More of What Happens When God Comes Close.

Categories: Curation