Choral Singing Is Still Alive and Well

HT: my friend Mindy

The Fifth Sunday Family Gathering

Our church has kind of a unique arrangement for our multiple services. We have an 8:15am contemporary style service, followed by Sunday School at 9:30am (with a coffee time in between), and then we have two 10:45 am services, one contemporary and one traditional. That means that Pastor Randy preaches three times each Sunday, and that at 10:45 we "share" him. He preaches early in the 10:45 contemporary service, and then walks to the other side of the building to give his sermon in the traditional service.

Three years ago, when we first started doing this I, with my gift of encouragement, predicted disaster. I was wrong, thank goodness. Though there are challenges for the staff in this schedule, it has worked out pretty well, and our attendance has grown steadily. All three services are well attended.

One thing we all wanted to prevent, since we are an almost 145 year-old congregation, and have many multi-generational families, was the development of three "congregations" that had no sense of connection with each other. One way we did that was to keep our very strong Sunday School system untouched. Most people can remain connected through those classes even if they attend different services.

Another thing we did was institute our Fifth Sunday Family Gatherings. Four times a year, when there is a fifth Sunday in a month, we scrap our usual schedule and meet for a joint service. Sheer numbers means we have to meet in the room that is used for the contemporary service, as we won't all squeeze into the sanctuary. Unfortunately, this means we can't use the pipe organ, but when we plan this service we work very hard to make sure the music is a blend of old and new, and that we use worship elements that feel accessible to every age group. We use musicians from both "sides". We use those services to highlight "family" celebrations: welcoming new members, giving the children entering fourth grade their first Bibles, hearing from the youth about their mission trip, and recognizing those who are graduating from high school or college. These are things the whole congregation likes to unite in celebrating.

This past week was the Sunday we met together, and we recognized the graduates. No, graduating from school is not a particularly "spiritual" thing, but we want to offer encouragement and prayer for those who are moving on to a new stage in their lives. That thought led me to choose a fairly contemporary choral piece for the choir, "Be Strong, and Take Courage", by Basil Chaisson. Before singing it, four of the choir members read these verses:

"Yes I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5, NLT)

"I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowlege and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation-the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ-for this will bring much praise and glory to God." (Phil. 1:9-11, NLT)

"So we keep on praying for you, asking God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thess. 1:11-12, NLT)

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (Jer. 29:11, NLT)

It was meaningful to the choir to give this benediction to the graduates on this special Sunday, the Fifth Sunday Family Gathering.

And then, being Baptists, we just had to follow that with a potluck!

Why We Sing

"And the duty of singing praises to God, seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned, why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections. "

Jonathan Edwards

Wintley Phipps-Amazing Grace

One of my choir members, Hilary S., sent me this over the weekend, and I thought you'd love it as much as I did:

"Tis The Season

Today at staff meeting I proofed the worship order for the Christmas Eve Service. Oh, what a sense of accomplishment that was! Although there is still one more choir rehearsal before our special Sunday of music this weekend, it is finalizing the Christmas Eve service that allows me to feel that all the pieces are in place for our church's celebrations.

Sunday morning we will have lots of beautiful Christmas hymns, extra instrumentalists, and, as has become our custom, a sermon given as a first person dramatization by Pastor Randy. This year he is portraying the Innkeeper. He does this in costume, with all of his message memorized. The job of the choir is to sing two anthems that will support the theme of this sermon. People love this special service, and every year folks invite their friends and family members to come especially to experience it.

Then, Christmas Eve, we will have our traditional evening candle-light service. Scripture will be read. Again, there will be Christmas hymns and carols, soloists and instrumentalists, and the children acting out the Christmas story under Ellen's supervision. At the end, with all the the lights out, we will all sing "Silent Night" as we light each other's candles. The room grows gently brighter as we sing each verse. We all remember the Light of the World, whose birth we celebrate.

I still have some presents to get together. I still need to clean (and baby-proof!!) the house for the arrival of our far away children. Haven't done any baking yet. But all is well. We're ready to worship.

Thankful For The First Baptist Choir

Today, and every Sunday, I'm very thankful for the First Baptist choir. We have 32 choir members, ranging in age from 13 to 82, and, even though we take all comers, they are good! It's amazing that without auditions, without any real restrictions except that their voices be fully changed and that they have some rudimentary music reading skills, we are able to tackle just about any music I choose for them to do.

But there's more to be thankful for than that.

I tell people all the time that I get to work with the most wonderful group in the church!

These folks are unconditionally loving toward each other and toward me. They are faithful in their attendance and work hard in our rehearsals. They laugh together. They love to truly worship through music, as much at rehearsal as on Sundays. They see their musical gifts as an offering to the Lord and to the church, not a means of making much of themselves. They pray for each other. If someone misses rehearsal they call to see if that person is sick. They shepherd one another, and love one another. They welcome newcomers into the group with open arms. They pass their love of choral singing down through the generations of their families (we have several generations of three different families, and three married couples in the group). They cheerfully do whatever crazy thing I ask them to do. They laugh at their occasional mistakes and go on to try even harder. They laugh with those who laugh, and mourn with those who mourn. They are what I call "real church".

I could go on and on. I love all of them! It's an honor to know them and a privilege to lead them.

The November 30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge

Bloopers

My daughter recently showed us a site that she and her music friends find pretty humorous. Here at home we've been listening to her prepare excerpts for a couple of upcoming auditions, and on this site, Trumpet Bloopers, there is a recording of a standard trumpet piece that allegedly was sent in to the Boston Symphony as an audition tape. Since we've heard the piece played well by a number of trumpet students, we howled at this version of it:

Hummel.mp3 (832k)

I traditionally have our choir end the Easter service with "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's "Messiah", which, for us, is a pretty big deal to prepare. As the director, I know anything can happen, whether it's a whole section losing it's place (which has happened-what a train wreck!) or the the sopranos and tenors losing a grip on the high notes (so far, so good). I always hold my breath and hope that we don't manage to have something like this happen:

MessiahOrganistOnCrack.mp3 (6829k) (the title is his, not mine)

They were doing so well, I really feel bad for them! But how can you not laugh?

If you're a musician, or ever sat through student recitals, you may chuckle at some other things he has posted on this site, all meant in good fun, and proof that perfection is, indeed, a rarity.

Worshipping In Humility

This Sunday, Pastor Randy will begin a short sermon series on the subject of worship. As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about that!

I have chosen two pieces for the choir. The first, to open the service, has lyrics that remind us that God Himself is with us, and it calls on us to come before Him in humility. This is an expression of God's immanence, that is, His nearness to us.

The second anthem is a real favorite with the choir, and I think it is the third time we've sung it since I came on staff. It's a setting of Psalm 8 called "The Majesty and Glory of Your Name". That psalm, written by the young David as he reflected on the night sky while herding sheep, captures the way the Creation can glorify God and reveal Him to all who see the natural order of the universe. Again, it calls on us to be humble in the presence of God's transcendence over His Creation.

Light pollution prevents most of us from seeing the sky that David saw 3, 000 years ago, with it's millions of stars visible to the naked eye being only a drop in the bucket compared to the vastness of the universe. I found this picture of our own galaxy of stars, the Milky Way, as seen from an Andean mountain top. I thought this might be a close approximation of David's view:




"O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

The Heavenly Dance

I love music. I love all kinds of music, whether it was written 500 years ago, or last week. Although it certainly isn't always used to glorify God, I believe that, like many things we misuse, it is a gift to us from God, designed to help us understand him more, and express ourselves to him.

Most of all, I love choral music! I know that's strange to say, because that isn't the kind of music you hear on the radio much, even if you choose to listen to a classical station, but I think the reason I love it is because so many people can do it. It doesn't require much equipment; we all have voices, though some are more blessed than others. It doesn't always require printed music; many can harmonize by ear. It doesn't always require a conductor or an instrumental accompaniment; beautiful songs can be sung without those. But it does require cooperation, agreement, listening, and collaboration to sing harmoniously. It is a communal effort with a common goal- to make a beautiful sound, and express a feeling or thought.

I found a great quote from a man who created a commotion in the world of church music with his emphasis on choral harmonies:

"When man's natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

(Martin Luther, 1538, in his foreword to a collection of chorale motets)

Good old Luther! I think he and I would have been friends, had we shared the same moment in history.

What I Did With My Summer

As you can see, my office has not yet recovered from slow-moving Tropical Storm Joyce. By the end of August I had been swamped with sample music, demo CDs, reams of paper related somehow to worship planning, and a lot of cracker crumbs and coffee spills. If I thought FEMA would get here anytime soon, I would send out a plea for help, but I think I'm on my own for clean-up.

Since the choir doesn't meet in the summer, some folks wonder what I do with my time. Here's a little run down:

First off, I worked with 2 different organists, 3 pianists, 2 trumpeters, and 3 violinists in rotation for our musical team for the hymns. I also scheduled various soloists and ensembles for 14 weeks worth of music, using a total of 33 volunteers, ranging in age from 12 to 92. I made sure sound checks and rehearsals occurred for these people, found accompanists for some, music for others, and made something like 2 million phone calls. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it seemed liked 2 million! I also:

1.Created a list of accompanists which can be handed out to all the volunteers when they agree to sing. It includes instructions about sound checks, etc.
2. Listened to many promotional CDs of choral anthems and chose a few to order for the expansion of our music library.
3. Used the full year’s worth of sermon topics Pastor Randy gave me to work with, and selected all the music for the coming year. This involves looking up all the Scripture texts that he has chosen to base the sermons on, thinking about how best to support the theme he is using, and searching through the music library for appropriate pieces.
3. Attended weekly staff meetings, monthly music board meetings, monthly worship planning meetings.
4. Prepared at length for, and met with an individual who was upset about some music related issues
5. Kept board members apprised of various things via e-mail.
6. Spent much time on the phone, with the goal of recruiting some new instrumentalists for the worship team
7. Worked on all the details of the Huntley Brown event.
8. Rehearsed the instrumentalists on the hymns every Wednesday morning .
9. Did conducting preparation for the fall anthems.
10. Made sure that the worship order was forwarded to Jenny Noble each week so that the songs could be typed into the software correctly.
11. Proofed the bulletin weekly, and pushed to have it remain unchanged after Wednesday.
13. Wrote and sent out the recruiting letter and article for the newsletter and bulletin insert.
14. Developed the calendar for the upcoming year.

I also used the two vacation Sundays I had left from last fiscal year, and took two from this fiscal year.

Some years ago we didn't have a music director in the summer. The growth of the church has just made that old way of operating impossible. I find that August, in particular, is very heavy with preparation for the coming choir season. I think the church has been wise in recognizing the need to staff the position in the summer, not just because I have a job then, but because we get such a strong start to the fall this way.

Preparing For a Purposeful Choral Season

When I am preparing for the fall choir season, and the first rehearsal, I spend several weeks thinking and praying to discern the single most important goal or theme the Lord wants us to focus on for the year. Sure, we always work on precise diction, blend, accurate part-singing, etc.- the usual choral ensemble goals. I mention the importance of faithful attendance at rehearsal and building community in the group. We even make sure everyone has a robe that fits. But, more than anything, I want to cast a vision of what our role is in the service. Are we just a bunch of people who like to sing and like each other? For many sitting in the congregation, that may be the perception.

But the worship choir, along with the instrumentalists that work with us, are so much more than that! This year, at our first rehearsal, I gave the musicians a sheet of paper with the following charge written on it:


“God desires for His singers, musicians, and worship leaders to be powerful and convincing proclamation tools on the earth. As you combine your God-given talent and carefully-developed skill with a full understanding of your purpose in God’s kingdom you will become a more powerful and convincing voice. You will release your full potential and fulfill God’s purpose for singers and musicians.” (Great and Precious Promises for Singers and Musicians, p.9-10)

God’s clear purposes for musicians are:

To precede and proclaim His presence, His power, and His Word: preparing God’s people to receive Him. (1 Chron. 15:25-26)

To lead God’s people as they celebrate, thank, and praise Him. (1 Chron. 16:4 NAS)

When the singers, musicians, and worship leaders under King Solomon became “as one” (harmonically and with unified purpose), God responded mightily:

“…the temple, the Lord’s temple, was filled with a cloud. And because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled God’s temple.” (2 Chron. 5:13-14)

Reassurance For An Introvert

I am, by nature, a reader, analyzer, list maker, outliner-of-thoughts. Can't help myself. As I think, I write. Then I re-think. Then I re-write. I can hone and fine tune ad inifinitum, but, of course there comes a time when I must get up and go forth and do.

Occasionally someone is surprised that I don't work full time (though I do have two part time jobs). Or, they will look at the Music Director's job and say, "What exactly does she do? How could that job take 15+ hours a week?" (Usually, this thought is voiced by a congregant who is looking at the bottom-line expenses of ministry.) While I am truly on the job 15+ hours a week, and most of that at the church, there is a lot of thinking, researching, and listening to both people and music, that helps me formulate the purposeful actions of my ministry. I don't want to just do things because they have always been done that way, nor do I want to make changes flippantly. I want to know why, from a theological standpoint, we do everything we do. If there is no discernible reason, I feel comfortable questioning the value of that particular activity. I think this is the way my Creator made me, and possibly why he has placed me where he has. Those who operate differently than I do may struggle to appreciate my work-style, but I have finally come to terms with it.

Thus, I was blessed to find this quote at Ray Ortlund's blog Christ Is Deeper Still:


"'Be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature' (1 Cor. 14:20). It is not easy to be a leader of people who can out-think you. A leader must be one who, when he sees a set of circumstances, thinks about it. He sits down with pad and pencil and doodles and writes and creates. He tests all things with his mind and holds fast to what is good (1 Thess. 5:21). He is critical in the best sense of the word, that is, not gullible or faddish or trendy. He weighs things and considers pros and cons and always has a significant rationale for the decisions that he makes. Careful and rigorous thought is not contrary to a reliance on prayer and divine revelation. The apostle Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:7, 'Think over what I say, for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything.' In other words, God's way of imparting to us insight is not to short-circuit the intellectual process."

John Piper, "Marks of a Spiritual Leader," #7, A Hard Thinker

And the Winner Is...

Tonight the choir voted from among the whole year's worth of choral anthems to pick their top three favorites. We will be singing these May 18th as our final time to serve in the service before we dismiss for the summer. So, choir, here are the results.

The hands-down winner was "Joy In The Morning".
Tied for second place were:

"How Deep The Father's Love For Us"

"Jesus At Your Name"

"It's All About the Cross"

I thought that since we had used "It's All About the Cross" twice this year, we should not use it again. So we will use the other three. I think, in looking at the list, we can work them all very nicely into the service.

It's All About the Cross

As I have mentioned, one of the most significant things the choir can contribute to a worship service is "singing truth" to the congregation. And, as I have also mentioned, that colors my selection of new music. Every season I recieve a number of catalogs and demo discs to review. I listen to a lot of Christian "elevator music", but once in a while one of the demonstrated anthems really grabs me emotionally-in fact, I usually suddenly find myself in tears as I am listening. Invariably, it is the Truth of the lyrics that brings this about.

This summer, as I listened to the demos by the hour in the choir room, I found the one. "It's All About the Cross", by Ruth Elaine Schram, is what I call a meta-narrative anthem. It gives a "Gospel-in-a-nutshell" presentation. I especially like to include meta-narratives around the holidays, when the church is often full of visitors and Christmas-and-Easter attenders. This particular anthem stood out to me as the one that we should do on Palm Sunday, when Pastor usually gives a sermon in first person style, and our members often invite friends. It is the perfect narrative to lead us into Holy Week.

I ordered it immediately. But throughout the summer, the lyrics of that anthem ministered to me so many times, especially those times when I was feeling some discouragement, because they helped me to focus on what I was really doing by serving in my position as Music Coordinator. After a particularly tough situation, I slipped that demo disc into the boombox in my room, and felt once again the "peace that passes understanding" fill me, healing me, encouraging me, and renewing my sense of purpose.

I decided that it would make a great piece to focus the choir on their personal ministry through music as well. So, rather than hold it for Palm Sunday, I introduced it this fall, and invited the choir to make it our ministry theme for the year. They loved it! Then the Lord led me to invite Dana, a woman in our congregation who teaches the hearing impaired, to sign along with us as we sang it. Little did I know that she has especially loved doing this as a way to share Truth with some deaf friends. She helped us, but we also helped her by giving her this outlet for ministry.

Last Sunday, we offered "It's All About the Cross" in the worship service, right at the close of the service. As the choir and Dana finished, there were resounding "Amens!" from the congregation, as well as applause, not for us, but for the powerful testimony of the words.

"It's All About the Cross" by Ruth Elaine Schram

We read about creation, the world You made for us,
The beauty of the garden, sublime and glorious.
We read about the Fall when innocence was lost,
When innocence was lost.
We read of people's lives and the lessons that begin;
The consequence of evil, the wretched stain of sin;
And then, the Ten Commandments, the firm, unyielding Law,
The firm, unyielding Law.

It's all about the Cross,
And God's amazing grace,
To take us from the Fall to a Holy place!
To seek us in our helpless and fallen state,
To find us when we're lost;
It's all about the Cross!

And so, You sent a Saviour, the Lamb without a flaw,
To fully keep the letter and spirit of the Law;
To live a life that's holy, a life that pleases God.
And then the Spotless Lamb was the final sacrifice;
Our righteousness complete through the precious blood of Christ.
We finally see how far from your holiness we are,
How much we need the Cross!

It's all about the Cross, and God's amazing grace,
To take us from the Fall to a holy place!
To seek us in our helpless and fallen state,
To find us when we're lost;
It's all about the Cross!
Thank God for the Cross!

So, that's our ministry theme for the choral season. It's all about the Cross!

"When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. " (1 Cor.2:1-2)

First Rehearsal

We had a terrific first rehearsal last night! Several new people joined us, and we sight read through most of the music for the fall. That's always hard work for everybody, and the new people were a little shell-shocked by it, but I did have several people tell me afterward that they are excited about the new music they saw. I think having an overview of the fall anthems builds enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. When we were done, we ate and mingled, and I was pleased to see that the new folks were being welcomed by the long-time members. They seemed to be feeling right at home.
I'm struck again by the loving, caring group we have. That's really the best witness they have as worship leaders.

Getting Ready

The first rehearsal of the choir season is tomorrow evening, so today I really began to feel the last minute pressure of being ready. The plan is to have a "sight reading party"-since no one really enjoys sight reading-and we will also have a food and fellowship time afterwards, so everyone can catch up with each other after going our own ways over the summer. Quite a few of the choir members have told me that they are eager to get back, because the choir is their small group. They miss everyone! It is hard to be apart all summer, but I'm sure we couldn't maintain enough of a quorum to perform successfully if we went all summer.

The new music is in the folders, I have been diligently doing my conducting prep, and our wonderful new accompanist, Cindy, has had the music in hand for a couple of weeks to prepare for tomorrow. We have at least three new people who have told me they will be there, and, amazingly in this age, we are looking at ordering a few more robes, because we only have 30, and they are all claimed.

Here's my deal on the robes: I am truly completely neutral about whether we should be robed or not. I like the uniform look. I am also a little concerned that younger people might not be too keen on them, and we don't want to create a barrier to their joining. But, so far, that doesn't seem to be an issue. I personally don't wear one, as the director, because I think all that fabric flapping around while I conduct creates difficulty for the singers in seeing my beat pattern-kind of like a lion tamer confusing a lion with a three-legged stool! And, when I stand at the podium and lead the congregational singing, I think it looks better if I just wear something nice and professional. Being Baptists, we don't robe our pastors and other worship personel, like the organist, though I know in some denominations this is routinely done. So that is how I have come down on it. Once in a blue moon some one will comment on this choice, so I thought I would post my thought process here so people would know how I came tho this conclusion.

Back to Blogging

Well, I've been a complete slacker about blogging, though I started with the best intentions. But Ramon and Michelle responding has prodded me to get back at it! Thanks guys!
As Michelle indicated, I have recently become a first-time grandmother, which makes me sound sooo old. Our third son and his wife just had a baby girl, and we made a mad dash down to OK to see her. She is, of course, the most beautiful baby around, and I think this is going to be a very fun stage in my life!
I've also been working intensively to choose music for the fall and make all the other preparations necessary for the start fot the choir season. It's actually my favorite task. My overarching goal in choosing music is to help the choir "sing Truth" to the congregation every week, and preparing these pieces is a way of meditating on Truth day in and day out. I can't imagine giving this up, Ramon! I have no objection at all to contemporary services, but I would really miss the comeradery and sense of purpose that come with being part of a choir.

Beginner Again

My daughter talked me into participating in the U of I summer band this year. I haven't played in a band for 32 years, so there is an element of madness here, but I took the bait because it might be the only time that I could play in an organization with both my daughter and my father. So, it was all about the three generation thing.
There is family tradition here. My dad played tuba in the U of I bands when he was a student. I played French Horn there when I was a student. And now my daughter is a trumpet performance major there, and plays in the wonderful Wind Symphony.
The summer band allows community members to join in the fun. There are two concerts each summer, performed outdoors on the Quad. It is the typical "band in the park" fair-Sousa marches, medleys from Broadway musicals, old warhorses like Vaughn-Williams folksong suites.

However, I think you are supposed to have some competence on your instrument.

This is where I run into problems. I used to be an adequate Horn player, even though I was a vocal-choral person. Now, I stink. It's incredibly embarrassing. But I'm learning some interesting things by blatting away at the end of the section.

First, this isn't high school, and people are actually kind enough to tolerate my incompetence, instead of whispering behind my back. In fact, they are very nice.

Second, for a long time I've been in a situation where I was probably the best, or one of the best, musicians available, and playing in the band helps me remember what it is like to be the person struggling to keep up. I hope that doesn't sound prideful in any way; it's just the way things are. I think this probably happens to a lot of well -trained musicians that are serving in church settings. You get to be a big fish in a small pond. Not healthy.

Lastly, next time I try to recruit someone to choir and they say "Well, I don't know.. it's been a long time since I've done that" I'll be able to reassure them. "Look", I'll say, "it's fun. The people are really nice. And it will come back to you, if you stick it out. Trust me, I know."