Back to the Future

[Blogger's note: This was the Musings for rehearsal publications of Wednesday, 4/18/07. I've been too scattered to get it published until today (4/25/07).]

I want to start this next segment of the year by expressing my appreciation for your ministry to the church family on Easter morning … not just to one service or the other, but the WHOLE church family.

About two hours after the benediction on Easter morning, we hit the road on a long trip to take the Toothpick to see a couple of colleges in Pennsylvania and to take the whole family to see a part of the country we had never traveled to as a family: Lancaster County (Pennsylvania Dutch country). During the trip, sounds from Easter morning echoed in my head constantly. After each service I had numerous people come to me to express their appreciation for the role the music played in their Resurrection Journey. As we traveled up the road to I was still getting messages of appreciation from people calling my cell phone.

Each of our worship leadership team did something that only they could do to make the message of Christ’s sacrifice and victory over sin, death, and the grave come alive in our hearts and minds. In my mind, the interaction of different instrumental and vocal skills coming together to lead people in worship is a great picture of how the body of Christ is put together. Different skills, different instruments, different personalities all come together to do (and to be) more than we could possibly do (or be) alone … all to the glory of God.

The events of Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech remind us that, despite the victory of the resurrection, we live in a world that remains painfully broken. The jagged edges of that broken world tore horrible gashes in the lives of many … gashes that will leave scars and empty places for years to come. The senseless deaths made the darkness of a sin-sick world frighteningly palpable. Events like that serve to remind us of the urgency of our mission as believers in Christ. We are called to take God’s light and poke holes in the darkness. We are called to bring hope to people who see no way out. This the power of the cross: Son of God slain for us. What a love! What a cost! We stand forgiven at the cross.

There is a lot of darkness out there. The question of how to poke the holes in that darkness is the constant challenge to followers of Christ. Some of us may poke holes in different ways and places than others. One thing I do know: we must go out there to poke the holes. That’s enough to think about for now.

Our Easter order of service.

This year we did two identical services for Easter morning. In addition to piano and organ, we used percussion on several pieces (djembe, digital set), bass and guitar on a couple of pieces, cello, a small brass ensemble, and handbells (on Allen Pote's "On the Third Day"). Our hope was to provide an eclectic mix that represented both of our worshiping constituencies in one unified whole. For the most part our people in both congregations found it to be a meaningful expression of worship (I've not heard from any that didn't ... and for that I'm thankful). Just in case anyone is wondering (and almost 3 weeks after the fact), I've listed below an annotated outline of the printed order of worship. Understand that the layout looks different because blogger can't easily do flush-left, centered, and flush-right text on the same line.

Prelude “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” (arr. Davis) - David Pitts (organ)

Invocation

Welcome to Worship and Passing of the Peace - Dr. Ed Gouge

Hymn* No. 160 “Low in the Grave He Lay” CHRIST AROSE
My friend RevJATB recently panned this hymn on his blog. I don't want it every Easter, but it was effective.

Offertory Prayer*

Offertory “Were You There” (arr. Ham) - Richard Cobb, piano
Richard is a layman in our choir who has recently begun taking lessons from my wife. He was a good pianist to begin with and it has been neat to see his musicianship grow.

———— A Resurrection Journey ————

Anticipating the Destination
“On the Third Day” (Pote) - Choir
If you don't know this piece, do yourself a favor and become acquainted with it. It is scored for Handbells, Brass quintet, Keyboards and SATB choir. The text is straight out of the Nicene Creed. I have a recording done at a YouthCUE festival that includes a full orchestration with a lot of percussion. I gave that to our drummer and he added just the right stuff from the digital kit to help our people who prefer the instrumentation we use in our 8:30 service connect with it.

Mapping the Journey - Dr. Blake Harwell
Mapping the journey is what we called the scripture exposition interspersed within the worship experience. Walking the Road is what we called the responses ... choral and/or congregational ... to the spoken messages.

Walking the Road
“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” (arr. Howard) Choir and congregation
This contemporary hymn by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty has become a favorite for both congregations. We usually use it as a congregational song in the contemporary service and as a choral anthem in the traditional.

Mapping the Journey - Dr. Harwell

Walking the Road
“Thy Will Be Done” (Courtney) - Choir
In the Wednesday night rehearsal before Easter, our drummer listened and discerned that adding the djembe might help. Making artful use of the deep sub-bass boom of the djembe, Freddy helped paint the darkness illustrated in this anthem beautifully.

Mapping the Journey - Dr. Harwell

Walking the Road
“Were You There?” (traditional) - Solo, choir, and congregation

Mapping the Journey - Dr. Harwell

Walking the Road
“The Power of the Cross” (Getty & Townend) Choir and congregation
“That’s Why We Praise Him” (Walker) Solo, choir, and congregation
We used a typical orchestrated anthem approach to "The Power of the Cross," then launched directly into a rhythm section driven mode for "That's Why We Praise Him" (piano, acoustic guitar, bass, drums ... organ added to help the traditionally wired congregation members connect better).

The Journey Continues
“Crown Him with Many Crowns” (arr. Hall) Choir and congregation
O. D. Hall's setting of Crown Him with Many Crowns is a classic. If you can find the original published in the 1970's, the brass parts published in the octavo are stronger (in my opinion) than the full orchestration that came with later editions. The octavo score has individual piano and organ scores. As you can see, we sang this one congregationally with the introduction and interlude choral stuff adding to the congregational.

Sharing Decisions - Dr. Harwell

Benediction
“The Power of the Cross” (Getty & Townend) Choir and congregation
This was just a simple re-iteration of the final chorus of this new hymn.

Holy Week?

I got an e-mail from my sister (the designer) this morning giving me the latest news she had on grandmother (97 years old and the sharpest mind in the family). Grandmother had to go in the hospital last week because the pain she experiences on a regular basis increased to the point that she had to have some additional relief. I talked to her on Saturday and we're hopeful that they've been able to help. She never talks about her pain and I've never seen her let it show to me (but I live a 7-hour drive away and don't get to see her but a couple of times a year). She still lives on her own, but has help that comes daily and Mom and Uncle Bob both either look in on her or call her daily as well. Every time I think about her I marvel at how remarkable she is and how blessed I am to have her in my family. Words fail.

My sister's e-mail subject was "Happy Holy Week", and I responded that this year Holy Week feels anything but. Every morning last week was our local YMCA Youth Prayer Breakfast (29th annual), which we host in our Family Life Center. It's a great program that brings inspirational Christian speakers in every morning to speak to middle-school and high-school students. I'm responsible for making sure the sound and video stuff happens the way it's supposed to, and I didn't succeed in delegating in this year. While I love messing with A/V stuff, it would have been better for me if I had handed off that responsibility to someone else.

On top of that (or underneath it, I can't tell which) was a yard sale (at our house) to help raise funds for our Acteens (led by my wife) to go to the National Acteens Convention this summer. I hauled 12 tables (heavy, 3/4" plywood jobs) from the church to the house to have room to put everything out that had been donated ... then from the house back to the church so that we were sure to have enough tables for our 4th annual Biker Sunday Weekend event ... which unexpectedly added another helping to my plate.

The band that was going to provide worship leadership on Saturday night and for the Sunday morning Biker Service (we shifted our traditional service to 8:30 for Biker Sunday) cancelled. Our college class's Sunday School leader (who works at the college and also works with Campus Outreach at the college) saved the day by putting together a hot student band to stand in the gap. They did an incredible job, but unlike the band that cancelled, they needed someone to set-up sound support for what they did. That meant a Tuesday night rehearsal, time on Friday working on their set-up, a Saturday afternoon rehearsal (I was able to hand off running sound for the Saturday evening event (thanks Brett, you're my hero) so that I could go home and grill the steaks for my mother-in-law's birthday celebration), and some time on Sunday afternoon getting it set back up for the youth group weekly Sunday evening worship time (which I had to get done before my wife's piano studio recital.

After I took stickboy to school this morning (he's in middle school, the lovely wife takes the toothpick to HS), I had about an hour's worth of have-to's to get done at the office. I didn't even bother to shower ... I just went and knocked out the essential tasks, then went home and crashed from about 9:00 to 10:30 or 10:45. I had to, or I would have imploded.

It's Holy Week already, and I'm still working on personnel to do everything that we are hoping to do for Easter morning. Trying to figure out what to do at Easter (and Christmas) continues to be one of the biggest challenges of ministry in a multiple worship style situation (or at least it is in this one). We thought it might be simpler to do the same thing in each of our morning services, but it hasn't turned out that way this year ... at least not yet. It is becoming more and more difficult to find a pre-published package that will bridge the gap between our congregational style-preferences. This year we're putting together something of our own, and we will probably still be working out the details until Saturday.

This has been a rather difficult season of life for me. I am finding it difficult to keep work from taking things from me that really belong to my wife and children. I am desperate to find some balance in life.

I replied to my sister and, without going into the kind of detail I did above, told her that this year Holy Week feels anything but holy. She responded back with words that I found very encouraging. She likes writing in all lower case (saves time, I suppose, but I just can't do it), and here's what she wrote:

praying for your this week. for realistic expectations of yourself ... and backbone to address those who have unrealistic expectations for you. you are God's vessel ... not his children's doormat.

[As I thought about what I had published earlier, I decided I needed to rewrite the last paragraph. If you read the earlier version, this one is more accurate ... or better for public consumption ... or more comfortable for me to have others read. At any rate, it's what I really want to say.]

What an encouragement ... thanks, sis. Now, hear me carefully on this one: my current fatigue does not have its source in being treated like a doormat, but rather in being too much like Bilbo described himself in the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring: "not enough butter over too much bread." I know I have friends in the ministry who read my blog from time to time, and who sometimes experience the same thing. To them, and to all others who read this I say, "Be encouraged. I pray you find ways to experience God's peace this Holy Week ... and I covet your prayers for the same." That's enough to think about for now.