Presbyterian Mission Agency rev. cece armstrong Archives

Worship and Music Conference content now available online

Posted September 1st, 2021

This summer’s Presbyterian Association of Musicians annual conference at Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, North Carolina, was held in person and online. But if you missed it — or simply want to share your experience with others — another option is available.

With help from its youngest attendees, PAM conference ends on a high note

Posted July 2nd, 2021

Since Friday’s closing worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference focused on communion, dozens of loaves of bread from all over the world were spread on the communion table before worshipers. For this service, children were also front and center — right where Jesus wants them to be, according to Mark 10:13-16, one of the texts selected by the conference preacher, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong of St. James Presbyterian Church in Charleston, S.C.

‘We are free’

Posted July 1st, 2021

During Thursday morning’s worship service at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, the Rev. Cecilia (Ce Ce) Armstrong told those gathered in person and online that she was not going to preach a devotional sermon.

‘You are beloved dust and immeasurably important, yet life is incredibly short’

Posted June 30th, 2021

During worship Wednesday at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Music and Worship Conference, it was Ash Wednesday.

Whistle while you worship

Posted June 29th, 2021

One Sunday morning, Tom Trenney, the Routley Lecturer this week for the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference and the minister of music at First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, invited the choir and whoever wanted to in the congregation to whistle during the hymn “Lord of the Dance,” except during the somber fourth verse. He tried the same thing Tuesday, inviting class participants to pucker up behind their masks and whistle.

‘We spent the last year literally and figuratively walking on the sidewalk avoiding each other’

Posted June 29th, 2021

“Just being here, being here together is what I’m most looking forward to,” said Eric Wall.

‘I can’t believe I get to be part of something so beautiful’

Posted June 29th, 2021

It’s Tom Trenney’s job to deliver the Routley Lecture each day this week during the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference. Rather than lecture students meeting both in person at Montreat Conference Center and online during his opening talk on Monday, Trenney told them a story from a few years back about a college student of his named Summer.

‘You are mine’

Posted June 28th, 2021

Preaching on John the Baptist, whose ministry centered on preparing people for one more powerful than he and who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong began her sermon on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, with these words: “You belong to God.”

‘Surprise, surprise, surprise!’

Posted June 27th, 2021

When he portrayed Private Gomer Pyle during the mid-1960s, actor Jim Nabors employed a number of catch phrases, including “gall-lee” and “Shazam.” But Pyle, who hailed from fictional Mayberry, North Carolina, which is in the same state as the very real Montreat Conference Center, the setting the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, was best known for recounting mixed-up stories punctuated by this phrase: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

Responding to the trauma of gun violence

Posted May 29th, 2020

The Rev. CeCe Armstrong had barely arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, when a white supremacist opened fire on a Bible study class at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine people.