Adapted from Roseleaf, March 2006
Newsletter of First UMC of Santa Rosa

March 16, 2006

You have come on sunny days and in the rain. I've watched you come on crutches and in slings, in grief and in celebration, but come you have. Who in the world ever notices these things? you may have wondered. Well, I do. Often I feel that the most appropriate ending to your anthem would be the benediction, because God has spoken to me through you and your gripping music. Many is the time that I left my cares at His cross to the accompaniment of your songs.

During my wandering times I see you through the choir room windows and listen to you labor over the various pieces. With painstaking repetition you repeat notes and tempos and phrasings, and you don't give up. I notice that, although no one ever calls your name during solo time, you listen carefully and smile encouragingly while someone else stands in the lights. I have never once heard you gossip about who was singing what or who flatted when.

Thank you for your enthusiasm. Your smiles and tears, your intense concentration and deliberate enunciation -- you have obviously invested a part of yourself into your music. And it has been a bona fide marvel! The body English suddenly that appears during the more exciting pieces communicates to the congregation your enjoyment of the music, and so we enjoy it all the more. Your careful attention to the cues and directions reminds me that you are there for a purpose. And so am I.

By Doug Albertson, director of Creative Arts Ministries,
from the point of view of an average congregant