Good rehearsal

Tonight my choir had an extremely successful rehearsal. Was it perfect? No, of course not. Did we accomplish a lot? I think so. Did we laugh? If you only knew! Did I have to work to keep us on task? Duh. Do I constantly say the same things any choir director I've always sung under has said? Yes, I am constantly reminding them to watch me, follow my tempo, sing the right vowels, you name it.

Boy did we work hard. But I think it was satisfying for all of us. Now time for me to go do my homework. At least I have something to keep me positive!

What did I get myself into?

None of us had any idea how big of a project this would turn out to be. But it needs to be done, or at least attempted before any judgement can be made. This is no small project. It's gonna take a lot of people striving to make things better and to turn the ship around. I certainly didn't know that they'd need my help turning the ship around. I don't think they even knew.

How do you turn a small church in a prime location that does have a lot to offer that no one seems to know about into a still probably small church that people do visit and stay? I don't know if anyone knows the answer, especially as each church is so different from each other. And in a time when it seems like so many other churches are facing the exact same problem, I think the church as a whole needs to change. How? I have no clue. This is not something they train you for in a Bachelor of Music degree program. Yes, it may get mentioned once or twice, but I don't think we all saw this problem coming. The warning signs were certainly there. But let's talk about something that I can at least help change, even though I am nowhere near the expert on this topic.

Yup, that's right. Music.

I still hear "Oh the organ is a dying field. Churches everywhere are switching to praise bands." Not everywhere. On both of those counts. It all depends on where you're at, both physically and spiritually. I've heard from several sources lately that "younger" people, i.e. my generation or thereabouts, care more about the message from the entire service, not just attending a contemporary or traditional service. And I fall into that camp as well. Yes, if I have a choice between a good "contemporary" service or a good "traditional" service I'll choose the traditional service. Granted that's what I want to do with my life as I'm an organist. But I certainly have played for a lot of contemporary services in the last 7 years or so. And quite often enjoyed doing it as well. Shocker!!!! The church organist occasionally likes to play with a drumset, guitars, and some singers.

Each church must find its own voice that makes them unique. And this includes new songs. Notice I did not say just contemporary music. There is new "traditional" style music out there that is really quite good. And there's some really bad stuff out there too. A friend of mine on Facebook had a link to an article entitled Worship Old and New.

"Here’s my take on [critiques of] contemporary music: if it’s a repetitive song, whose words are more or less from the Bible, and accompanied by guitar and drums we call it a praise chorus and deride it. If it’s a repetitive song, whose words are more or less from the Bible and accompanied by the piano or sung a capella, we call it Taize and celebrate it."

How true. You can encounter this scenario almost anywhere. "Oh I love Taize, but I hate contemporary music." Newsflash, Taize has a similar format to a lot of contemporary music.

I am not saying to completely throw everything out the window and start from ground zero. We need to take what we do well and go from there! That will give us better results and we still are true to ourselves. It's a novel idea. Now it's time for me to go practice for tomorrow so the music will be the best it can be.

So good to be back :)

Last semester I didn't do any dancing for some odd reason. Let's chalk it up to moving to a new place and not knowing anyone in the scene here. However, lately I felt that I needed to get back into dancing. A big part of me was missing. And last Thursday we didn't have choir rehearsal at church so that gave me the motivation to get to the lesson. I can make the advanced lesson after choir practice on a normal week too!

Last night was the first dance of SparX, the Lindy exchange hosted by Case. I can only really go to the dances this weekend due to homework, housework, church, etc. I'm not trying to make excuses, but the five loads of laundry I did today really did need to happen. Probably didn't need to make a whole batch of cinnamon rolls for Bring Your Own Fellowship at church tomorrow, but so worth it!

As I was leaving the dance last night I felt a happiness that I haven't felt in several months that I get from dancing. It's the only "non-music" activity I participate. Now, I know you're probably thinking, "But Michael you're dancing to music, RIGHT???" Well yeah, but I'm not the one making the music. Quite a nice change!

Okay now it's time to go get ready to do some more dancing tonight before getting up waaaay too early for church tomorrow! And Go Packs Go!!!

What I realized in the car today

I was thinking as I was driving to church today. I truly like my job. Is it perfect? No. Is this church where I will spend the rest of my life? Probably not. Are there issues out of my control at my church? Most definitely. Will I have battles to fight? I've already had a few and will mostly likely have more.

But rarely a day comes when I dread going to work. That dread often happens when the alarm clock goes off too early, but some of that is my fault for not going to bed earlier than I did. I would love to have some more guts to the sound of the organ as the congregation and choir combined can give me a darn good run for the money, but it's better to have that than me overpowering them no matter what I use.

I know God has a plan for me, but holy cow I am really stubborn some days. Really stubborn. This summer it seemed like this job thing just wasn't fully working out. Yes, I had a paid internship lined up, but nothing was totally certain yet. And then I had to take a review course. I grumbled and griped about a course I didn't need, blah blah blah. Did I ever think that God had me in there for a reason? No. But one day soon after the semester started my prof told me of a job opening for an organist/choirmaster. And yes, it's the job I now have.

When I asked my boss at the cathedral whether I should apply he said, "You'd be stupid not to apply for it." He has a way of being black and white, which I greatly appreciate. Less than a month later the church hired me, the fresh out of undergrad organist.

There are challenges, especially being a smaller congregation, so numbers aren't always high. But the talent is clearly visible both in the volunteers and the paid singers. Sure, they're not perfect, but neither am I. We can only offer our best to God, and that's all that is asked of us.

How fortunate to enjoy going to my job, even when I'm in the midst of a vacation and will be there on weekends when everyone else is off. I wouldn't trade that for anything.