Music Ministries: Traditional

Tom Brantigan

I was interested to read recently that the Sunday School needed more teachers during the 10:00 am hour due to the ever growing number of babies and toddlers. I happened to be reading this while looking out over the 10:00 am congregation, which itself has been growing. I wonder if there is a connection there?

Traditional music in the church is all about connections - connections between the past and the future, connections between new and old, connections between people. We worship in a style that would be familiar to our parents and grandparents. We sing music that may be 900 years old or music written last year, some by our own Bob Hayman. We sing in old languages, contemporary languages, but mostly in simple English so that the words will connect us best to the meaning of the worship we offer.

We celebrate our connections. This year's "Many Moods of Christmas" concert was dedicated to Marilou Denisch, a 40 year member of the choir who went to see her Lord a year ago. The Chancel Choir has sung a piece in Swahili along with the Children's Choir. Then there's the weekly celebration, worship, and connection the members of the Chancel Choir feel as they rehearse together, pray together, and simply look after each other.

The Traditional Music organizations are all about these same cross-generational connections. First, look at the Chancel Choir which contains members of the "Grand Generation" through "Generation Y." We have long-time-members, Gene Ball and Niles Ellingson, at one end of the spectrum and our high-schoolers, Billy Russell, David Herman, and Christina Reichley, at the other end. The Chancel Choir celebrates all members of any age! (Anyone reading this should feel encourage and welcome to join!)

During the summer, we are blessed by the "Family Choir" where my 8 year old daughter Annie sang and people who otherwise can't rehearse with us on Thursdays connected with us in music. (Thank you, Eileen Gathman and others!) Then you add the Children's Choir - (Is that the Millennium Generation? I've lost track) and the Bell Choir and... Anyway, you get the picture.

Sundays at Central -- perhaps not directly part of the Traditional Music Ministry but certainly traditional music and certainly a ministry -- continues to grow and to make connections between performers as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia and audiences as close as our own neighborhood.

As I am writing this, we are rehearsing for Christmas. Just as at Easter, we find that we are discussing how to provide more worship services in a traditional style. When the major holidays arrive, we need to accommodate the larger congregations of worshipers who somehow feel the need to make connections with their own past or pass these traditions to their own young children. The 10:00 am Service is not a stagnant hold-over of a past style; it is growing and vibrant and deeply moving.

What this all means to me is that Central Church has its focus exactly where it should be. Central's congregation focuses on worshiping God, forming connections with other worshipers, and then moving out into the world to live the life Christ teaches us to live and thereby connect others to the love of God. The style of worship is secondary to the expression of our love for our Lord and our connections with each other.

So, I am grateful to all of you for supporting our efforts, grateful to the members of the Chancel Choir, grateful for the leaders of the Children's Choir, the Bell Choir, for Jay Biddison and Ruth Williams, for Carol Corey, Steve Nelson, and Amy Killian and for all who appreciate our efforts and can use them to bring them closer to Christ!

Soli deo Gloria! (To the glory of God!)