Personal Narrative: The New Music Ministry

“We’d arrived at St. Lucy’s that morning, part of a pack of fifteen-strong. We were accompanied by a mousy, nervous-smelling social worker; the baby-faced deacon; Bartholomew, the blue

Carmen is in the stage of contemplation on attending church again. She remains undecided, so action is not expected now. Carmen attended church weekly before her arrest. Carmen is insecure with her place in the church and feels unsure how members would react. Her Grandmother is urging Carmen to join the youth group to ease her back into the church community. Carmen’s therapist is going to help Carmen work on her anxiety about church.

The minister they had once sought for comfort and solace has become a seductive, mysterious stranger with whom nobody can identify. The congregation feels as though Hooper can reach into their souls and see all the inadequacy and sin hidden within. As expressed in the story, "Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of most hardened breast felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought." Because of his vow, the minister is forced into a life of solitude, forever lacking satisfaction and comfort.

The minister is the kindest, most loved man known throughout the town. Mr. Hooper was loved by everyone in the church. Every Sunday after the classes were finished one of the parishioners would invite Mr. Hooper in the evening to eat dinner at his house. Everyone would go to him and would talk about their sins

On February 26, 2017, I attended to Bethany church, because they brought The Moody Symphonic Band. The event started at evening. Bethany offered a warm welcome to everybody, who wanted to participate to the event. When I came to the welcome room, there were food, drinks, and the most beautiful thing was the members of The Moody Symphonic Band were singing a thanks’ song. The Moody Symphonic Band was funded in 1970. The member are undergraduate and graduate students from Moody’s school. They have

“The decision to leave is… you’re giving up everything you’ve worked for your whole life,” she added. “I think people need to

Anyway, he finally continued. The ushers would have to send one of the big brass plates down one aisle, and receive it at the next until they made their way to the open doors in the back of the sanctuary again. As soon as they all closed the doors behind them, the head usher took all the plates on a rolling cart to the pastor's personal office to count money. The two other ushers resumed talking sports, and Stacey walked right out the church entrance to the street. He returned to his favorite thing to do on Sunday mornings. That was to look at department store window mannequins adorned with the latest styles of dresses overlooking the downtown sidewalks until his parents were ready to go home. If that wasn’t enough, he had one more fall-back

As Christmas approached and the weather in the Isle worsened, as last year celebrations were muted. To try to raise some cheer the government allowed publicans to relax the rules over out of hours drinking. Women were urged to make Christmas ‘as happy as possible,’ but no one could pretend the outlook was anything but bleak. At a concert in the Primitive Methodist Church in Epworth, Mr. Enos Bacon of Doncaster, the self-styled ‘Yorkshire Nightingale,’ was booked to sing and help with fund raising. Apparently, he had a remarkable voice with a range from deep baritone to very high soprano, changing between the two so rapidly that his audiences were spellbound in amazement. In his preaching and lecturing he spoke of an officer who lost a leg

praise and worship team had taken the stage, and it was time to stand and sing. Praise and

The choir only meets on Fridays due to tremendous scheduling difficulties at GRCMS. After one year of this Friday choir, it became apparent that typical concert performances would not suit the choir. This fall (2016) it was converted into Chapel Choir. The “chapel performances only” aspect was an effort to structure the choir more like a church choir. This format fit well with the goal of creating lifelong musicians, as church choirs might be the only choir many students experience into adulthood. This fall, I also gave students weekly homework in an effort to make students more comfortable when it came time to

The church bell rings, ding, dong, ding. Hearing the bells ring takes me to a place where I can feel and see myself sitting in a church pew; waiting for the minister. Now, picture the minister appearing before the congregation with a black veil from his face. Mr. Hooper, the town minister, is wearing the veil which in turn stands for the burden of the people.

My goal at St Christopher's was to quickly, rather than incrementally, implement a Traditional parish music program rooted in the language of the people. My swiftness caught the Old Guard off guard, thus earning me the label of impetuous. They were hard-wired to expect as many organ-based old metrical hymns as they wanted. Like a mulberry bush (a plant with deep roots), their position was entrenched

In its original cultic sitz im leben, where the psalm would have been sung in antiphon, the exhortation would have been directed toward the congregation in the liturgy, whereby they would respond with the second part of each verse, the whole assembly telling the wondrous story of YHWH’s salvation of Israel. We too can join in this choral liturgy, seeing the thread that is drawn from the pillars of the earth at creation, through Israel’s history, to Christ’s cross and resurrection, even to our own day where we continue to see the salvation of YHWH in our midst.

P3 _________________________ is the clergyman from whose point of view the story is largely told.

The priest spoke in a monotonous voice that seemed to drift on in low grumbles. A lot less attractive than the song that ensued before and she only sighed out of boredom. If the priest was ever sick and in need of a day off, she was sure they could rely on her to repeat at least half of the speech. After all, she’s heard it so many times, she could probably perform it in her sleep. Even a surprise baptism could make a flare of interest spark in the stultified teen.