Faculty Profile


Daniel Hoggatt   
Professor of Church Music


Teaching Philosophy

This is an interesting time in history to be a church musician, or indeed, to be anyone working in the mainstream of Christianity. Indeed, it brings me to think of the Chinese curse, which translates as: ""May you live in interesting times!"" We do, and the forecast of this saying is both a challenge and a source of fascination.

Casting a vision into the future of 21st century music and worship may seem easy enough to do-when one is uninformed about where we are today and how we got here. It is vital that future church leaders understand and appreciate the abundant and varied resources available in the music and worship practices of the past and present, before they make their mark on the future of the church. My ultimate goal is to help these leaders develop the facility to employ these resources, find ways in which to integrate their innovations, and meaningfully create powerful worship experiences. This is the source of my fascination.

The challenge is this: over the last 15 years, musical ""style"" has increasingly become the primary factor in determining worship style. We no longer ask: ""What do you believe?"" or ""Are you a Presbyterian?"" We ask: ""Do you have traditional, blended and/or contemporary worship in your church?"" It is almost as though worship is based on sectarianism, rather than on theological tenets or denominational affiliation. The only area of agreement by which the majority in our field is concerned, is that worship and music issues have become confusing at best, and spiraling out of control at worst. It seems every gathering of church professionals, whether musicians or clergy, focuses eventually on concerns about worship style before becoming more finely tuned on music.

B.A. Lewis and Clark College; M.A. San Jose University; D.M.A. University of Colorado.

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