This Sunday we are going to experience the language of music. Don Prestly, our worship and music coordinator, has put together a service that includes all of our music groups…The Chancel Choir…The Praise Team…The Bell Choir and who knows what else he’s got up his sleeve. It’s a real accomplishment during a Minnesota summer to get all of those people to commit to rehearsing and showing up. Don told me he only had a handful of people who couldn’t make it. That is amazing….It’s going to be a great service with music for everyone.
I am so grateful for Don and all those who lead us in our music ministry. I believe that it is as important to some as anything I say or do…I can carry a tune and I know our hymns and songs well enough to match them with a theme for any given Sunday with Don’s help, but that is about it for my musical abilities.
One of my favorite stories about this is from my very first interview to be a pastor. The interview team was talking about their church and got going about how much they appreciated the pastor playing his guitar and tuba and singing in the small choir. After about five minutes they turned to me and asked…“And what do you play?” Without missing a beat I said, “Right Field.” It got the laugh I was looking for and lucky for me, they had a softball team.
Those of us who don’t play an instrument or cannot read music often think of music as a foreign language. And so although we can enjoy it, even be inspired by it, the depth of it sometimes escapes us. One of the things I’m looking forward to on Sunday is that Don is going to reflect a bit on the place of music in our worship and in his life. Over the six years Don and I have spent together, I’ve come to greatly respect his attention to detail, his command of the language of music and his desire to inspire others with music…including those who are making it.
Don has shown me how music is so much more than hitting the right note at the right time. Tim Case, our organist…pianist… does this so well. Tim is so very gifted and versatile. When I think of his playing and the music he and Don and our groups make together, I’m reminded of a scene in the old TV show M*A*S*H. In the episode the music snob Doctor Winchester is gloating over a surgery where he saved a man’s life by amputating his arm. Later we find out that the man is a concert pianist. This man is sinking into a depression. Winchester, the music lover, has a rare moment of compassion. Winchester says something like…”I can put the notes together…but you make music.”
Together Don and Tim and our many different music groups go beyond the notes to make music that inspires us each Sunday. We are blessed as a congregation with a wonderful…hard working….engaging....versatile in their own rights….inspiring music makers at EPUMC. Let’s come ready to go beyond the notes to the place where God awaits us.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
I am so grateful for Don and all those who lead us in our music ministry. I believe that it is as important to some as anything I say or do…I can carry a tune and I know our hymns and songs well enough to match them with a theme for any given Sunday with Don’s help, but that is about it for my musical abilities.
One of my favorite stories about this is from my very first interview to be a pastor. The interview team was talking about their church and got going about how much they appreciated the pastor playing his guitar and tuba and singing in the small choir. After about five minutes they turned to me and asked…“And what do you play?” Without missing a beat I said, “Right Field.” It got the laugh I was looking for and lucky for me, they had a softball team.
Those of us who don’t play an instrument or cannot read music often think of music as a foreign language. And so although we can enjoy it, even be inspired by it, the depth of it sometimes escapes us. One of the things I’m looking forward to on Sunday is that Don is going to reflect a bit on the place of music in our worship and in his life. Over the six years Don and I have spent together, I’ve come to greatly respect his attention to detail, his command of the language of music and his desire to inspire others with music…including those who are making it.
Don has shown me how music is so much more than hitting the right note at the right time. Tim Case, our organist…pianist… does this so well. Tim is so very gifted and versatile. When I think of his playing and the music he and Don and our groups make together, I’m reminded of a scene in the old TV show M*A*S*H. In the episode the music snob Doctor Winchester is gloating over a surgery where he saved a man’s life by amputating his arm. Later we find out that the man is a concert pianist. This man is sinking into a depression. Winchester, the music lover, has a rare moment of compassion. Winchester says something like…”I can put the notes together…but you make music.”
Together Don and Tim and our many different music groups go beyond the notes to make music that inspires us each Sunday. We are blessed as a congregation with a wonderful…hard working….engaging....versatile in their own rights….inspiring music makers at EPUMC. Let’s come ready to go beyond the notes to the place where God awaits us.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
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