Metamorphosis Moment: Ritual Artistry and the Work of the People

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Notes

1 Ferris Jabr, “How Does a Caterpillar Turn into a Butterfly?” Scientific American (August 10, 2012), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/.

2 It is unclear where this saying originated, but it is a common phrase in 12-step programs.

3 Barna Group, “Signs of Decline and Hope Among Key Metrics of Faith” (March 4, 2020), https://www.barna.com/research/changing-state-of-the-church/.

4 Jason Moore, Both/And: Maximizing Hybrid Worship Experiences for In-Person and Online Engagement (Plano, TX: Invite Resources, 2022).

5 What a gift it was to produce online worship this year for the Metropolitan Community Churches whose online presence is reaching LGBTQIA people in life-saving ways throughout the world.

6 Pan Theater, “Rules of Improv 1,” https://pantheater.com/rules-of-improv.html.

7 For more information see www.worshipdesignstudio.com.

8 There are many accounts of the Wesley’s Methodist Movement. John Wesley’s journals may be the best witness to the working-class people they were trying to reach. See also, Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley: The Patterns and Practices of a Movement Maker (Wilmore, KY: Seedbed Publishing, 2014).

9 Marcia McFee and Karen Foster, Spiritual Adventures in the Snow: Skiing and Snowboarding as Spiritual Practice (Skylight Paths, 2012). This book is part of a series called “The Art of Spiritual Living” that seeks to offer structure and reflective suggestions for activities that may not be perceived as spiritual practice.

10 The field of ritual studies is a rich repository of scholarship about the “deep structures” of ritualizing. This body of work provides important training for those who will curate ritual art. Recently, authors who draw on scholarship about ritualizing such as Priya Parker (see n. 11) and Casper ter Kuile, The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices (New York: HarperCollins, 2021) have gained enthusiastic audiences outside of religious practitioners, signaling an interest in curating meaningful moments among “the laity.”

11 Prya Parker, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters (New York: Riverhead Books, 2020) helps us understand the intricacies of creating opportunities for meaning-making in human-to-human events.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcia McFee

Marcia McFee, the Ford Fellow at San Francisco Theological Seminary, a ritual artist, author, and travel-retreat leader through the Worship Design Studio she created, is the author of Think Like a Filmmaker: Sensory-Rich Worship Design for Unforgettable Messages.