A "Missed Frustration" and Andrew Snead
I will share with you a frustration, actually, a missed frustration. In our “normal world” of May Memorial Church, it is common for me to not be able to begin the sermon on some Sundays until forty, even forty-five minutes into the worship service. When this happened, I would be quickly thinking of how I could make spur of the moment edits so we would be hearing the benediction as few minutes after noon as possible. Over the past eleven months, this has not been the case.
When this late starting sermon happened in worship there may have been several contributing factors. Sometimes, it was because I took too much time for announcements. Sometimes the Children’s Sermon went a little long. Sometimes there was a testimony. But most often it was because of the music. The combination of three or four hymns, a choral anthem, a solo, a chorus before or after a prayer. It adds up. And we would be forty-five minutes into worship before the sermon would begin.
I had not thought about this since the pandemic began and worship has been so different for us. But as I thought about it, I confess that I miss that tension. And the reason late-starting sermons happened so often is clear: music is very important to us. Choral anthems, congregational singing, a sung prayer response, piano, guitar, organ.
To state the obvious, this has all changed because of a virus that is passed from person to person by our breath, the aerosol that comes from our mouth when we speak and especially when we sing.
I understand the reason for our adjustment, but I miss the music. And honestly, worship is not the same and it never will be the same, without singing, especially congregationally. Music made up a large portion of our worship service, and without it things just don’t “feel” the same.
Today is Andrew Snead’s first day as May Memorial’s Minister of Music. Andrew is a "life-long" church musician, and has served the Church as a Music Minister since he graduated from college. Actually, he has only served one church before coming to us today, a church where he is now greatly missed. I am grateful today that he is now with us, his former congregation’s loss is our gain. Because I believe as we are rounding the corner of this pandemic, and as we at May Memorial start putting the pieces back together of our “song,” Andrew is the person to lead us through this time. His leadership, his skill, his practiced talent, and his musical sensitivity is a gift from God to the May Memorial family for this particular time, and my prayer is that it is for years to come.
When church musicians gather, I have found that there are a few select hymns that they sing that aren’t always “accessible” to the average church congregation. These are big hymns, hymns with long phrases that soar with energy and motion, and church musicians, when worshiping together allow those hymns to raise the rafters. One of those is Fred Pratt Green’s text “When In our Music God is Glorified,” which is sung to the tune ENGELBERG. As Andrew comes on staff as our Minister of Music, I have been thinking of this hymn anew this morning. Three of the five stanzas proclaim:
When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!
How oft, in making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!
Let ev'ry instrument be tuned for praise;
let all rejoice who have a voice to raise;
and may God give us faith to sing always:
Alleluia!
I long for a worship service filled with music so that I’m starting sermons at 11:40 again. I’m ready to cut the sermon length that we may sing. I’m ready to grab a hand and sing Blest Be the Tie after communion. I’m ready to hear you all sing again. The day is coming, be hopeful. Be patient. God has brought Andrew and Peter to us so we will be ready to sing with joy when that day comes.
May we be tuning our instruments and preparing to raise our voice to always sing Alleluia!