Donna J. Dinsmore

2011 Resident Scholar

Donna J. Dinsmore

Donna J. Dinsmore has come from a career in choral music education in the United States to worship facilitation and education at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. In addition to earning a Masters of Christian Studies, she served as the worship coordinator for the College, responsible for over 700 different worship events.

Donna continues to lead unusually diverse communities, ranging from mainline to free churches in North America and New Zealand. She knows how to pass on the best of a culture's worship and music practices to future generations by giving them the experience and understanding to make the tradition their own. It is this richness of “enlightened cherishing” that Donna brings to Vaughan Park.  

Donna will be compiling various materials from the graduate courses she has taught in the areas of worship, music and spirituality and integrating them with data from her varied experiences of worship facilitation.   Her project, an interactive, multi-voiced book provisionally entitled “Exploring the Aliveness,” will utilize the insights of Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan in exploring the dynamism between God and lovers of God.   In addition, Donna will weave together conversation with voices as diverse as Eugene Peterson, Mark Strom, former and present students, and the hundreds of fellow pilgrims who have participated in Worship Matters Conversations with her over the years.  

Because of her commitment to communal learning, Donna anticipates that connections with friends old and new in New Zealand will both inform this project and hopefully contribute to the continued development of Christian spirituality and worship in New Zealand and beyond.