{"id":130486,"date":"2024-07-05T19:03:48","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T23:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=130486"},"modified":"2024-07-05T19:04:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T23:04:21","slug":"church-times-taylor-swift-beyonce-and-bono-can-themed-church-services-attract-younger-worshippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=130486","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Taylor Swift, Beyonc\u00e9, and Bono: Can themed church services attract younger worshippers?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Heiliggeistkirche, in the Baroque\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/germany\">German<\/a>\u00a0city of Heidelberg, is a 15th-century Gothic jewel of a church. Beneath its vaulted roof, worship has been offered for centuries, with music ranging from Gregorian chant to Lutheran hymns. Even at the church\u2019s time of greatest turmoil, when it was consecrated and reconsecrated by different factions during the wars of religion, nothing, perhaps, will have been quite so surprising as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/musichymnschoir\">music<\/a>\u00a0that resounded through its nave in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe buttons of my coat were tangled in my hair. In doctor\u2019s-office-lighting, I didn\u2019t tell you I was scared. That was the first time we were there. Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you. Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus, too\u201d \u2014 these are the words of Taylor Swift\u2019s quietly tragic song \u201cSoon You\u2019ll Get Better\u201d, dedicated to her mother after a cancer diagnosis. It was one of the chief musical items in an entire service inspired by the American pop star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the title \u201cAnti-Hero\u201d (a track from Swift\u2019s 2022 album&nbsp;<em>Midnights<\/em>), the service at the Heiliggeistkirche featured a local singer and professor of popular church music at HfK Heidelberg, Tiene Wiechmann, who sang six of Swift\u2019s songs. These were interspersed with reflections on Swift\u2019s lyrics, life, and philosophy from the (now Protestant) parish\u2019s Pastor, Vincenzo Petracca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2024\/5-july\/features\/features\/taylor-swift-beyonc%C3%A9-and-bono-can-themed-church-services-attract-younger-worshippers\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Heiliggeistkirche, in the Baroque\u00a0German\u00a0city of Heidelberg, is a 15th-century Gothic jewel of a church. Beneath its vaulted roof, worship has been offered for centuries, with music ranging from Gregorian chant to Lutheran hymns. Even at the church\u2019s time of<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=130486\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[478,183,132,184,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-germany","category-liturgy-music-worship","category-music","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130489,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130486\/revisions\/130489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}