Previous JLG Events

The Joint Liturgical Group organises an annual day conference on an aspect of worship.

Exploring imaginative contemplation and reflective prayer, for all who pray and lead prayer in Christian Communities.

• Contemplation & Prayer — Fr. David Birchall led the Conference.
• Watch and Pray: responding to visual art as a practice of prayer — Revd Peter Gardner invited participants to open our eyes, to look with attentive curiosity and to consider what we would choose to look at when we pray.  He reflected on ways that contemporary visual art practice can enhance our ways of seeing and transform our everyday prayer as individuals and worshipping communities.

• About the presenters:
  • Fr. David Birchall joined the Jesuits in 1976 and was ordained in 1985.  For nine years he was the Director of St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality centre.  He is currently Director of the Ignatian Spiritual centre in Glasgow.
  • Rev Peter Gardner: Visual artist and Church of Scotland minister, currently is the Church’s pioneer minister among the visual arts communities of Glasgow. Together with his wife Heidi, visual artist duo Gardner & Gardner (www.gardnerandgardner.co.uk ) focuses on temporary, site-specific installations and interventions, often set within the context of worshipping communities and their buildings, introducing a conceptual element into the sacred architecture and drawing attention to the sacred found in contemporary culture.

 2019 – Shaping our Worship: Prayer and Silence   March- London

• Speakers:  Calvin Samuel (Principal, London School of Theology) and Jo Love (Wild Goose Resource Group)

2018 – Funerals – Shaping our Worship: shaped by Ritual – London

• Shaping our Worship II
  • Funeral rite for a professed unbeliever — Rev Norman Wallwork contributed both to Singing the Faith and the Methodist Worship Book and drafted the JLG Liturgy in the current crematorium Funeral Services. He is a lead chaplain in Exeter City Centre Retail Chaplaincy.
  • Bespoke Christian funerals in a secular world — Revd Sam King trained as a nurse, worked in care of the elderly and in health service education before following the call to ministry.  He represents the Baptist Union of Great Britain on the Joint liturgical Group.
  • Doing it by the Book — Kevin McGinnell – Catholic parish priest in Luton, and previously chair of the Joint Liturgical Group and the English Language Liturgical Consultation. He has responsibility for education and formation in the Diocese of Northampton.
  • Celebrating life’s milestones without the benefit of clergy: How can the Church listen and learn? — Ruby Beech – an independent celebrant, based in the Midlands, who conducts individually written ceremonies for funerals, weddings and more. Ruby trained with the UK Society of Celebrants. She is a local preacher in the Methodist Church.

2017   Shaping our Worship — shaped by the Arts      Sept – London 

• Shaped by Art – Graham Maule is a Resource Worker for the Wild Goose Resource Group. He is an artist, designer and occasional hymnwriter, who is drawn to imagining and researching space – or rather, place, sign, symbol, song, performance and the event of ritual in lay training and involvement.
• Shaped by Music – Andrew Carwood is the Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, the first non-organist to hold such a post since the 12th century. A singer by training he is also the Artistic Director of the early music ensemble “The Cardinall’s Musick”, which he founded in 1989. He is known for the scholarly and entertaining way in which he introduces and narrates concerts, breaking down barriers between audience and performer, allowing the music to speak in an even more eloquent way.
• Shaped by the Sound and the Story – Geraldine Latty’s Sing Gospel Workshop — songwriter, performer, vocal coach, choir director, and lecturer in the Music and Theology degree program at London School of Theology.
• Carey Luce is the Head of Music at Alpha Prep School in Harrow. He has worked in a wide range of musical contexts and plays piano, keyboard, bass, drums and guitars. After graduating from Goldsmiths’ College he was a church music director, alongside working as a freelance professional musician and educator.

2016 – Shaping our worship — Word and Space      March – London

• Shaped by the Word of God:  Tom O’Loughlin is a Catholic Priest and Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. He has a special interest in the history of scriptural interpretation, and recent books include ‘Gildas and the Scriptures: Seeing the World through a Biblical Lens’, and ‘Making the Most of the Lectionary’. 
• Shaped by Space:  Graham Fender Allison, Resourcing Worship Team Leader for the Church of Scotland, presented some of the work they do to help congregations works with and develop their church buidings. Exploring using conversations in Worship – What if our stories shed light on, or had something to say to, our patterns and practices of worshipping together?