Join The Welcome Wagon plus pastors and musicians from around the region for a conversation on what leading worship in small gatherings can teach us about creating intimacy with God and each other.
9:00 - 11:-00 a.m.
Third Church
600 Forest Ave
Room 213/15
Enter by the Fellowship Hall, then head up the stairs to the second floor and looks for the signs!
This is a free event, and coffee and light snacks will be served. Please RSVP to Valerie Holland so that we can plan to have enough materials on hand.
In an informal, conversational format, we’ll examine the possibilities and challenges of inviting people into spiritual intimacy in small gatherings like house churches, parish groups, and bible studies, and how the lessons learned there can help transform our experience of leading worship—and just playing music—in settings of any size.
In a time balanced between teaching and conversation, we’ll hear about Vito and Monique Aiuto’s path to becoming church-planters and then The Welcome Wagon, pursuing two parallel lines of inquiry:
1) How can church leaders help equip non-professional musicians so they feel empowered to lead in their small (often intergenerational) groups or house churches? and
2) How can the lessons about authenticity and transparency learned by leading in intimate settings help leaders in larger congregations avoid being conformed to the performance- and spectacle-driven model of contemporary culture?
Seeking intimate worship, then, could mean “lowering the bar” for expectations of charismatic presence in potential leaders who are not performers, while also "raising the bar" for seasoned players in terms of focused attention on participation and community among everyone in the room. In other words, how do we invite people into intimacy with each other and God whether the space holds 10, or 50, 200, or 600 people?
About the Welcome Wagon
Vito and Monique Aiuto’s experience playing music as The Welcome Wagon grew directly from their lives as church-planters and de facto living room worship leaders with Resurrection Church in Brooklyn. Their friend and music producer Sufjan Stevens noticed and encouraged the particular creative feel they had developed almost by necessity, and suggested they put an album together to share the music more widely. Yet even with such well-known backing, The Welcome Wagon has maintained a personal and professional focus on house and other small venue concerts that preserve the original sound and—more importantly—intention of their retro-gospel sound.
You can read more of their story and perspective on music, worship and community in this Christianity Today article, and in this 3-part interview in Image Journal.
Hear More of the Welcome Wagon
Vito and Monique are presenters at the Makers Series | Intimate event on Friday night before our Saturday Conversation.
They will also be giving a concert Saturday night at 7:00, hosted by Redeemer Anglican Church at the corner of Grove and the Boulevard, across the street from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Click HERE for tickets.
The Welcome Wagon: Light up the Stars