This book is an investigation into church music through the lens of performance theory, both as a discipline and as a theoretical framework. Scholars who address religious music making in general, and Christian church music in particular, use "performance" in a variety of ways, creating confusion around the term. A systematized performance vocabulary for the study of church music can support interdisciplinary investigations of Christian congregational music making in today’s complex, interconnected world.

From the perspective of performance theory, all those involved in church musicking are performing, be it from platform or pew. The book employs a hybrid methodology that combines ethnographic research and theory from ritual studies, ethnomusicology, theology, and church music scholarship to establish performance studies as a possible "next step" in church music studies. It demonstrates the feasibility of studying church music as performance by analyzing ethnographic case studies using a developmental framework based on the concepts of ritual, embodiment, and play/change.

This book offers a fresh perspective on Christian congregational music making. It will, therefore, be a key reference work for scholars working in Congregational Music Studies, Ethnomusicology, Ritual Studies and Performance Studies, as well as practitioners interested in examining their own church music practices.

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本书从表演理论的角度对教堂音乐进行了调查，既作为一门学科，也作为一个理论框架。研究一般宗教音乐制作，特别是基督教教堂音乐的学者，以各种方式使用“表演”，造成对该术语的混淆。用于教会音乐研究的系统化表演词汇可以支持对当今复杂、相互关联的世界中基督教会众音乐制作的跨学科调查。

从表演理论的角度来看，所有参与教堂音乐的人都在表演，无论是在平台上还是在座位上。这本书采用了一种混合方法，将民族志研究和来自仪式研究、民族音乐学、神学和教堂音乐学术的理论相结合，将表演研究确立为教堂音乐研究中可能的“下一步”。它通过使用基于仪式、体现和游戏/变化概念的发展框架分析民族志案例研究，证明了将教堂音乐作为表演来研究的可行性。

这本书为基督教会众音乐的制作提供了一个全新的视角。因此，对于从事公理会音乐研究、民族音乐学、仪式研究和表演研究的学者以及有兴趣检查自己的教会音乐实践的从业者来说，这将是一本重要的参考书。