by EDOW | Apr 9, 2020
The new realities of doing church online have brought questions regarding copyright for both print and webcast to the forefront for those creating bulletins and recorded or live streamed services.
In 1976, a lawsuit against a Roman Catholic Archdiocese brought to light the common practice of churches printing materials without copyright permissions, especially music. After a guilty verdict was reached in 1990, the Archdiocese paid out over 4 million dollars. For a time, this raised awareness of the need to purchase licenses and acknowledge in print materials the creators of the music and texts used.
Since then however many in the church have grown lax in their practices of acknowledging copyright. Added to that are some common misunderstandings about copyright, the most popular being that, if we have copies of the material in the pew, we can print that many copies each week.
Over the last year of serving as the diocesan liturgist, I have seen copyright violations in almost every bulletin from the smallest to the largest churches in our diocese.
Copyrights are not there to produce headaches for church administrators and clergy, but rather to give credit–and compensation–to church poets, musicians, and liturgy creators for their work. This is a justice concern and one the church should get correct.
The wonderful news for all of us is that many of the licencing companies have made reporting and finding copyright for music and texts simple.
Even better, if we are producing works in print or online on a regular basis, the weekly costs are reasonable and based on weekly attendance records, soo smaller churches pay less. And best of all, the two major copyright licensing companies for church music–OneLicense and CCLI–have agreements with multiple individuals and publishing houses so most of us no longer have to seek individual copyright permissions through multiple publishers.
Some things to keep in mind as you produce materials for your congregations:
- All materials have been created by someone–even those in the public domain–and as such an acknowledgement should be noted in your work whether it is in print or online.
- When material is not in the public domain, permission for use must be obtained.
- In your copyright acknowledgement, always state the origin, creator, copyright date, and publishing house for each of the liturgical text(s) and music pieces used.
- The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is public domain, but not all material produced by Church Publishing is–so check for copyright (and remember point 1 above).
- Licensing statements for podcast/live streaming must be posted near the links to your online offerings on your website.
- If you post content with copyrighted material to a YouTube channel, you must include any copyright acknowledgement in the description. If you use another platform (Facebook, Vimeo, etc.), research and follow the best practices for copyright adherence for that platform.
- Most purchases of music for choirs and instrumental works include a performance clause and do not need copyright acknowledgement when sung or played, but follow point 3 above in your productions whether in print or online.
- Report usage of all materials to the licensing company that grants your permission for use.
- Assign a troubleshooter to monitor any live productions for issues that might arise.
For more information about copyright and licensing companies, check out the Liturgy and Music section of our Worship and Pastoral Care page on the website.
I welcome your questions and am happy to guide you through the process of selecting which company is better for your congregation, what kind of a license you may need, how to do acknowledgements and report usage for your congregation’s licensing company.
I promise, once you have done it a few times, this process gets easier.
The Ven. Steve Seely, archdeacon and diocesan liturgist
by Bishop Mariann | Apr 9, 2020
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
Matthew 28:1
Should you wake up on Easter morning feeling sad, scared, or strangely empty, may you take heart in the fact that you are experiencing the day as Jesus’ disciples did on the first Easter morning. On this the four gospel accounts agree: for the disciples, resurrection was not a singularly joyful experience. Whenever joy is mentioned, other feelings accompany it, such as fear, confusion, or doubt. How could it have been otherwise? No one goes from grief to joy at the turn of a switch.
And yet seeds of joy and hope are planted in their hearts. They don’t force themselves to feel joy–it comes alongside their fear. Hope rises in them like a seedling pushing through dirt toward the sun. The One they thought had been taken from them forever is somehow alive–not as he was, but with them nonetheless. Life as they had known it was over, but seeds of a new life had been planted in the soil of their grief.
Let me emphasize this: Jesus’ disciples didn’t cheer themselves up on Easter morning through the power of positive thinking. As one theologian makes the point: “Resurrection is not brought about by good people trying harder, but when God acts at that boundary of life we call death and does something altogether new.”
Without question, Easter Sunday falls this year in a challenging time, as it does every year for those who find themselves at that boundary of life we call death. But resurrection is for challenging, heartbreaking and frightening times–for times like this, when we need assurance of God’s empowerment and presence in and through the worst that can happen.
Those who promote Christianity as a faith of selective rescue from the struggles of life are not reading their gospels carefully. Christianity is a faith in God, revealed to us in Jesus, who suffers alongside us and carries us through whatever we must endure. Rather than triumph, resurrection brings quiet amazement that life can indeed be lived after something precious is lost. The grace and mercy of Christ meet us in the crucible of real life, where real things happen, not all of them easy. These are the times that resurrection faith is for.
Resurrection is also a universal experience. Every human being has had or will have the experience of crossing through death into life. Nor is resurrection merely a private experience: As William Sloane Coffin preached on Easter morning over 40 years ago, “The lamp of resurrection doesn’t merely swing over one empty grave, but rather over the thick darkness covering the whole earth.” While this is still a Good Friday world, what God asks us to trust with our whole being is that love is stronger than death. “We’ll never be able to prove this,” Coffin said, “but we can trust it.” We can trust it for ourselves, even trust it for the world. When we do, we align ourselves with the power of love that is stronger than death and help live it into being.
What makes this experience uniquely Christian is Christ himself. For those who choose him, or are somehow chosen by him to be his followers and friends, there is a deep and abiding connection. We’re not walking on the path from death to life alone; Jesus meets us, as he met those first brave women as they left the tomb. He will never force himself on anyone, nor punish anyone for not choosing to know him. But he’s here, on the path, and he’s up ahead, as he promised. We’ll never know for certain what lies before us, but we do know who is before us, which even in the midst of fear, gives us hope.
by Bishop Mariann | Apr 5, 2020
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.’
Matthew 21:1-2
Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:4-8
From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Matthew 27:45-46
Please pray with me:
God, grant us the serenity
To accept the things we cannot change,
The courage to change the things we can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as we would have it
Trusting that you will make all things right
If we surrender to your will;
So that we may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
–The Serenity Prayer, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr
I’d like to speak to you about a poignant, confusing, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring dynamic that moves us between living with intention to address all that which lies within our power to change when there is so much that must be changed, and accepting–eventually with serenity, although it can take awhile to get there–the things that we cannot change. I’m struck that in what’s known the world over as “the serenity prayer,” serenity is something that we ask God to grant us, suggesting that when we experience it, serenity comes not through our will, but as a gift.
What I want to leave you with, to borrow from William Blake, is a “firm persuasion,” (1) a determined resolve to live these days as best you can, with intention and equanimity–an important word for this time, meaning calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation. Like serenity, a firm persuasion is something to pray for, not try to force upon yourself as an act of will. My prayer is that God will give you the particular grace you need to rise to what’s being asked of you now, so that you can live with intention and do what needs to be done.
At the same time, I pray that you might know the transformative grace that comes whenever you must accept what you cannot change, and allow yourself to feel grief as you surrender what or who is being taken from you. When that moment comes, there is no escape, really, although we instinctively fight it for a long time. In the end, the only option is to let go and lean back, trusting the rope of God’s love will hold. May you receive assurance that God will meet you in the moment of surrender. I’m not speaking only to you, of course, but to myself. May God grant us the serenity to accept things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Consider the interplay between intention and acceptance for Jesus in the last week of his life:
First, think of the intention with which Jesus entered Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples walked 100 miles to get there from their base of operations in Galilee. And, as biblical scholars point out, it wasn’t because Jesus was tired that he rode a donkey for the final stretch. (2) It was his intention to make his entrance as he did, and the crowds responded just as he had hoped.
Now, was it his intention for events to unfold as the gospel accounts describe in such tortuous detail? Some voices in our biblical texts are unequivocally clear–yes, he came to die for us and everything happened according to divine plan. Other voices in the texts suggest, painfully so, that it wasn’t his intention and certainly not his desire to suffer and die as he did. But even in that branch of the tradition, you never get the sense that Jesus was surprised or that he railed against what happened. His intention went deeper than any expectation of outcome. He would walk the way of love to the end, no matter what.
As we walk through these days–or weeks, months, however long they last–that’s the kind of intention to pray for, a firm persuasion that rises from a place of inner resolve. On some days, I grant you, getting through the day may be intention enough, particularly for those carrying great burdens. On other days, God’s grace may inspire more of us to action–albeit from our homes–for greater good. How the world needs that now.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry said something this week about his own intentions. Taking his cue from the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself,” he’s decided that his way of living through this time is to ask himself each day “How can I love God today? How can I love my neighbor today? How can I love myself today?” (3) It’s a practice we do well to emulate. It helps keep our focus on that which lies within our power. And when we run up against the limits of our love, as we surely will, then our prayer can be to ask God to increase our capacity to love.
Keep in mind that intention does not assume perfection. In fact, it assumes imperfection, that we will fail to live up to that which we intend. What intention does is keep us on the path even when we fail, when we fall short, when we fall down. Intention allows us to say as we lay our heads to sleep, “Okay, that was today. Tomorrow I begin again.”
Jesus also lived through the experience of accepting what he could not change. Remember his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” He knew then what was coming. He feared not only death, but also the unraveling and destruction of everything his life had stood for. He knew how fragile his disciples were, how fickle the crowds, how deeply those in authority resented him. He went to the garden to pray, specifically to pray for a way out. When none came, he did the only thing left to him–he turned his face toward what was coming and he accepted that fate as God’s will. On the cross, he cried out his feelings of abandonment even as he surrendered his spirit.
There is spiritual language for such times, drawn from the story of Jesus’ Passion: we speak of our gardens of Gethsemane, our crosses to bear, our dark night of the soul. The psalmist wrote of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Dorothy Day described “the long loneliness” of her life. The poet William Wordsworth wrote, “A great distress hath humanized my soul.” (4) We’d like to pass over our distresses if we could, but when we can’t, Jesus’ story becomes our own. One gift in observing Holy Week is its reminder that accepting what we do not choose is holy work.
So as we begin, I invite you to set an intention. Let it be an intention to receive whatever it is that God seeks to give you now. Allow the prayers and rituals of this season
be a means through which God might speak to you in a personal, sustaining, and transformative way. This year, the holiest season for Christians overlaps with the Jewish commemoration of Passover, and the Holy Month of Ramadan falls within the Christian season of Eastertide. May we take heart in knowing that people across the world are praying their deepest prayers, born of both suffering and hope.
For those of us who follow Jesus, this is a timely week to invite Jesus to make His presence known in suffering. Dare to name aloud before God whatever it is that you’re struggling with, whatever hurts the most, scares, worries or energizes you now. Listen for what word, what guidance, what reassurance may come, and then pray:
Dear God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
And the grace to trust that You are here.
Amen.
——
(1) “Then I asked: Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so make it so? He replied: All poets believe that it does, and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains: but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything.” William Blake, quoted in Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte (NYC: Riverhead Books, 2001), p.3
(2) Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
(3) Habits of Grace Invitation from Presiding Bishop Curry
(4) So once it would have been–’tis so no more; I have submitted to new control: A power is gone, which
nothing can restore; A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.
Poetry Foundation – Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm
by Bishop Mariann | Apr 2, 2020
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited . . . And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:4-8
In both personal conversation and public discourse, I’ve noticed that we find ourselves looking back on past trauma or struggle to help make sense of what’s happening now. Sometimes past memories are harmful, as old wounds surface with fresh pain. But it can also be both helpful and reassuring to remember how we’ve come through hard times before, and to learn from past mistakes.
So it is that we’re learning more about the 1918 influenza pandemic and how our families endured the Great Depression. Memories of the weeks after the 9/11 attacks are surfacing, and how long our collective attention was focused on the tragedies of that day and all that followed. My colleague, Paula Clark, a native of Washington, DC, told me that her touchstone is the assassistion of Martin Luther King, Jr., and how the city was forever changed. In our personal lives, we’re talking about the times we endured long stretches of unemployment or illness, separation from loved ones, and grief.
We’re doing what human beings have always done; to paraphrase the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, we’re living forward but looking backwards for understanding and meaning.
For Christians, this Sunday marks the beginning of our holiest of seasons, known as Holy Week. In our memories and rituals we’ll retrace the events of the last week of Jesus’ life, inviting God to speak to us, in our situation now, through them. The week culminates in a joyful affirmation that not even death can separate us from the love of God revealed to us in Jesus, but we will also take the time to ponder each moment of a truly heartbreaking story. In doing so, we open ourselves to God’s solidarity with us in suffering.
So while we won’t be gathering in our churches for these important days, I encourage you to take part in them from your homes, via technology or in the quiet of your own prayer. Given all that’s happening in and around us, I am persuaded God will speak to you through these ancient stories in ways that will give you the strength and courage, comfort and reassurance you need. That is my prayer.
As a colleague I admire observed, we are writing the story now that we and those who come after us will one day tell about how we made it through. Like our forebears, we’ll have stories of grief and endurance, sin and grace, suffering and solidarity, death and resurrection. But it’s not our story alone, for we are not alone. God is here through it all. We look back to the events of Holy Week for meaning, as we live forward by grace.
