Whew! Take a breath.
It’s that time of year again. We are rushing to get music learned, behavior modified, costumes made, lines learned, food prepared, and everything cleaned. Rushing to the manger, with a little chaos, a lot of excitement, and, hopefully, the right spirit.
This is the time of year that we do a lot of outreach (especially in the “assisted living” department), so I want to share with you an idea that we found to be fun and surprisingly rewarding.
It's been a tough few weeks in the world. Mass shootings. Acts of terror. Racial injustice. Social injustice. Discrimination. Fear. Hatred.
Again and again we find ourselves here - a hurting, broken people - fighting to break the silence, tear down the walls that divide us, preach the Gospel of love over and over.
This is part of our ministry in church music, I believe. We are the messengers, the ambassadors, the peace-makers and the hope-bringers. We are God's instruments of peace. What a privilege - what a responsibility.
Now, more than ever, we need to come together. We need to unite - our hearts and hands and voices - in proclaiming God's message of love and light and doing His work in the world.
"For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:14
This fall, SD and I are starting an intergenerational (youth and adult) choir at our church. The church has a strong children's choir program (through 6th grade) and a good size adult choir (30-40). Our program is a short, 8-week session designed for people who love to sing - no prior experience necessary. We meet once a week for an hour and at the end of the session, we'll combine with the adult and children's choirs to sing an anthem in worship.
We created this group for people that like to sing but feel uncomfortable jumping right into the adult choir, those who can't make Wednesday night rehearsals or don't feel they can make the year-long commitment, and those who've never formally sung in a choir but want the experience.
It sounded good on paper.
We gave the invitation by email, print mailings, and the weekly bulletin. We made an announcement in church one Sunday. We shook hands with people we didn't know at Coffee Hour.
One week before our first rehearsal, we had four people signed up.
