Music Ministry Resources and Information

The role music plays in developing and growing your ministry cannot be overstated. The worship experience is not only about hearing a message from a minister or learning a new interpretation of  Scripture; a complete and fulfilling worship experience involves community-building, bonding and creating atmosphere through physical vibration as only music can. Read full article.

 

The Grace Note Award

The Grace Note Award is given annually by Unity Worldwide Ministries for outstanding contribution to New Thought Music. Recipients are chosen by the Music Ministry Team. The award is presented at the emPower Music Festival.

 

Music Ministry Team

Jacquie Lenati

Jacquie serves as Manager, Multimedia Designt at Unity World Headquarters. An award-winning filmmaker, she has owned her photography and video production company, Oh Shoot! Productions since 2002. Jacquie served as Creative Arts Director at Unity of KC North for five years. During her time there, she grew the volunteer music ministry to include dozens of regular participants including a rockin' band, solid song leaders, an awesome choir and even a cantankerous bell choir! "It is said that love is a language we all speak, I would offer that music and the arts are the alphabet and sentence structure that carry our meaning of love into expression."

David Ezell--Team Chair

David is a composer, arranger, conductor and webmaster. After a career as a high school, college and community orchestra director, primarily serving African-American communities in South Carolina, he retired in 2006. In 2007 he founded Heart Wind Music, which offers online distribution of New Thought sheet music and audio. Also in 2007, he joined the Music Ministry Team. In 2012, Unity Worldwide Ministries selected Heart Wind Music to host its Online Choral Library. David has been a church music director since 1983, and is now at Unity of Columbia, S.C.

 

Todd Lowry

Todd is the music director at Unity Spiritual Center, Albuquerque, N.M., and former copyright attorney for Hal Leonard Music Publishing.

 

 

Kim-Char Meredith

Kim-Char Meredith is the music director at Unity in Naperville, Illinois, in addition to being a gifted singer/songwriter. Kim-Char also owns the Pahzee recording studio.

 

 

 

Jeff English

Jeff English is the music director at Unity Spiritual Center of Lansing, Michigan.

 

EmPower Music & Arts

emPower Music Festival (formerly Posi(tive) Music Festival)

emPower Music & Arts' advisory board met and decided to offer our 15th Annual emPower Music Festival scheduled for October as a virtual event October 31-November 1, 2020. We feel that folks will still (wisely) not be traveling or gathering in large groups by then.

Our team will offer many virtual workshops on music ministry, resources, licensing, live streaming music for services, and much more. We will have the 15th Annual Posi Music Awards virtually on Saturday, October 31, 2020, in addition to evening concerts. We plan to make the virtual Posi Fest very affordable at $129 per household. Since it is virtual, many artists and music directors from smaller churches tell us they will be able to attend. 

We are still planning our return to Unity Village for our 16th Annual emPower Music Festival, June 23-27, 2021. We plan to give Rickie Byars the UWM Grace Note Award then as well as still have Rickie's Tower Concert on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, to benefit the Unity Archives. 

The emPower team is grateful for our Unity family and the support and love we've received over the years from our churches in the field. 

emPower U

New in June 2020! We are launching a series of informative workshops for church leaders, music directors, and fans called emPower U. You can sign up for workshops on songwriting, licensing, livestreaming and copyright, music ministry resources, singing, and much more. Classes will be led by artists such as Karen Drucker, Daniel Nahmod, Sloan Wainwright, David Roth, Jana Stanfield, and others. We think emPower U will appeal to many music ministries and will allow whole music teams to participate in the virtual classes. 

Monthly Themed Playlists

emPower MA also provide monthly music playlists for the Unity annual themes.

Your emPower Team,

    Rev. Richard Mekdeci, Sue Riley and Russ Hammock  

 

Online Music Library

The Online Music Library (downloadable) was established by Unity Worldwide Ministries with leadership from UWM's Music Ministry Team. Since 2012, choral and vocal ensemble selections have been available from the library. Beginning in 2014, congregational songs are also included in the library.

You can browse the list of selections, view a sample of the sheet music, and for most of the songs listen to a recording. For one single purchase you have the right to make the copies needed for your ministry. Because the music is downloadable, you can instantly have music that you can use.

 

Useful Information for Your Music Program

Organizing the Music Program

Music Program How-To

Service Music

  • Christmas Carols - Eleven Christmas Carols with Suggested Alternate Words
  • Easter Choral Music Suggestions
  • Music Products - We offer songbooks of New Thought music especially chosen for our Unity communities. Many of these songbooks come with sampler or accompaniment CDs.
  • Online Music Library
  • Sheet Music - free sheet music attachments from past Sound Connections newsletters. You can also type in the name of an artist or song in the "Search Keyword" box if you are looking for something specific.
  • Songbook Index - Listed by song title, author/s and the Unity Worldwide Ministries songbook in which the song appears.

Educational Resources

 

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