University Musician
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Kevin ParksUNIVERSITY MUSICIAN |
B.Mus. (Mount Allison University)
Personal statement
Kevin Parks is a Worship Animator and Pastoral Musician whose passion is to engage and enliven what is deep in our souls through a well-selected text and tune.
It is a difficult time for the voice. Many have been made self-conscious, even ashamed to participate in singing by damaging messages that they should not or cannot sing. Where once the practice of singing was one the entire community joined with unabashed vigor, now it is increasingly the purview of the specially trained or appointed, especially as consumer and ‘passive observer’ behaviours become more deeply entrenched. Congregational song is further encumbered by our worries about Covid19 safety. But “we sing because we can” and “because we have a story to tell” (John Bell). For Kevin, every voice is a beautiful instrument of praise, adoration, supplication and lament, expressing the range of our humanity and telling our relation to that which is holy. The voice is personal, it is ours, a unique gift, meant to be shared complete with imperfections, plainly because whatever voice we have—whether it rings clear as a clarion or is barely audible in a rasping whisper, or not audible at all but conveyed through the interpretive signs of our hands or the written word—it is a gift from God.
Kevin’s priority is to model practical, collaborative, collegial approaches to liturgical planning and worship leadership. Music ministry has taken him across the country to serve in United Church, Anglican, Presbyterian and Salvation Army congregations. He is a sought-after clinician and music leader for conferences and events, a resource to musician colleagues, church committees and clergy in the following areas of research:
Developing church music leadership (professional to volunteer) in any community context, focusing especially on integration and relationship building for music ministry in staff teams and lay governance structures.
- Copyright, and the ethical use of intellectual property in the church.
- The multi-valent environments of virtual&physical presence in a digital-church age.
- Safe musicking in a pandemic.
Kevin is the Congregational Designated Minister of Music at St. Andrew’s United Church, Halifax, and is on the development team for the United Church of Canada’s upcoming Worship and Music resource, ‘Sing 2025’. In the Anglican communion, Kevin is co-music director of the Diocese of Fredericton Summer Choir School. His partner, Dana Pardy, is a candidate for ministry in the UCC, and they have three ‘mostly’ grown children.