One more reason to consider attending the Church Music Workshops in Fort Wayne this summer.
“The richer the background in Lutheran doctrine, mores, and music, the more nearly will the musician approach the true ideal of a Lutheran musician and servant of God in church.” — Hugo Gehrke
Don’t forget to take a look at the Church Music Workshops being offered at Concordia Theological Seminary this summer. They are well worth your consideration.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! As the music of Holy Week and Easter Sunday continues to ring in our ears, I’d like you to think about summer.
What’s happening this summer? The Church Music Workshops at Concordia Theological Seminary – Ft. Wayne, IN. This year there are opportunities for organists, AND choir directors, AND handbell directors/ringers. In other words, bring the whole crew.
These workshops are an excellent opportunity for fellowship, refreshment, and growth. I’ve attended twice over the last few summers and they were great experiences. See my previous reviews here and here.
The following information is provided by Kantor Kevin Hildebrand:
I’m in the process of rereading the essays by Walter Buszin in the “Music for the Church” published by the Good Shepherd Institute. It’s a great book and the essays, though written about 40-50 years ago, are still fresh and speak to our times today.
The following selection has resonated with me over the weekend. Buszin reminds us that the musical aptitude is not as important as the musical and theological attitudes of the church musician.
The work of communicating the Gospel should emanate, therefore, not only from the pulpit, the cathedral, and the classroom, but also from the organ and the choir loft. All unite to serve and disseminate the Word. The task of the organist, choirmaster, and cantor has in many respects the same purpose as that of the preacher, the missionary, the teacher of religion, and the professor of theology. Even for this reason great care should be exercised by congregations in selecting and appointing their choirmasters and organists. It is more important that the church musician have the mind of the church, possess the necessary liturgical knowledge, and give unquestioned evidence of a salutary approach to the problems of Christian (Lutheran) worship than that he be an organist and/or choirmaster of superior ability. (Theology and Church Music as Bearers and Interpreters of the Verbum Dei – Walter Buszin)
A few days back I was flipping through “First Person Singular: Reflections on Worship, Liturgy, and Children” by Carl Schalk. It is is a smallish volume of less than a hundred pages with brief reflections on various topics related to children in the life of the church.
Schalk had a reflection that was particularly relevant to the Advent season based on Ambrose, the author of the Hymn of the Day for this First Sunday in Advent – “Savior of the Nations, Come” (LSB 332)
As the story goes, Ambrose (340-397), the great Bishop of Milan, was having trouble with the Arians, a heretical sect which denied Christ’s divinity. When the Empress Justina, who favored the Arians, tried to get Ambrose to open one of the churches–the Basilica Portina–for her adherents, Ambrose adamantly refused. Fearing reprisal from the Empress, Ambrose gathered the faithful in the basilica, singing psalms and hymns to buoy their spirits in this time of persecution. When the soldiers sent by the Empress arrived at the basilica, so tremendous was the effect of the people’s song that the soldiers are said to have joined in the singing. The Empress finally was forced to abandon her plans.
St. Augustine, one of Ambrose’s converts–who as a young man was present with his mother at the Basilica Portina–wrote some years later in his Confession about the moving experience and how the singing had made a profound impression on him. (p. 17)
Schalk next asks a question that propels this historical situation to our own day: “But where were the children?” His conclusion, based on Augustine and that society’s lack of child care centers, is that the children, with the whole family, were at the Basilica singing the strong hymns of Ambrose. The whole church family–young and old–were spiritually nurtured and grew by these hymns.
His encouragement to the church today is to continue (or reinstate, as the case may be) the practice of teaching children the strong and sturdy hymns of the faith — not “Twinkie Tunes with Ding Dong Theology” (title of another reflection). These hymns can be formative in the faith development of the children.
Why not start with Ambrose’s Advent hymn?