Dear friends,
Thank you again for your spirited, joyful singing and dancing from our World Communion Sunday celebration. Your presence inspired those gathered to worship-- enough even to join you in singing and dancing, and God was no doubt delighted to hear a new wave of praise from First-Plymouth. Tonight, we turned the page and returned to a more European, traditional repertoire. If we can sing this art music with the same authentic brilliance, conviction, vitality, and spirit that we did HALLE HALLE and DIDE TA DEO, we will rediscover some of the sometimes overlooked treasures in these good old tunes. We continue to strive for that balance of vocal freedom and contextual awareness that allows our unique voices to be instruments serving the music and its message, rather than forcing the music to serve the needs of our unique voice. We can all be very proud of how far we are coming along as an ensemble, and tonight we continued to connect-- Amen! We're on a path from good to great-- it's a long path, but so far what an uplifting journey!
This weekend is a Choir Holiday as we can enjoy singing in the pews with the congregational choir, led by the varsity men's chorus from UNL. Without the pressure of preparing anthems for Sunday, it is a good week for us all to spend some extra time with some scores of our upcoming repertoire, maybe while streaming some of the pieces on the blog. The more we individually prepare ourselves for rehearsals togethers, the more we can collectively benefit from our rehearsals together. There are so many layers to ALL of the music we are blessed to sing-- we can never get to the bottom of it all-- but we can get deeper and deeper in if we dig and dig, rather than just skim the surface. If we bring our best fruits to the rehearsal rather than just whatever happens to be on the shelf, we can have such a beautiful meal altogether. What a talented, gifted choir we are! The only thing that enables us to reach (or prevents us from reaching!) our amazing potential is the discipline that we bring to our work and to our ministry. The more we individually grow, the more we collectively grow. That is a wonderful blessing, and a true opportunity!
On a slightly less philosophical note, here are some newsy items and challenges for the week:
1. Remember to let Sarah Gauger know if you can help with the book sale, and let John Reinert know if you can help with the chili cookoff.
2. Be sure to congratulate Jay Colwell and Enoch Ulmer for earning high marks at the recent NATS (National Association for Teachers of Singing) Competiton. HOORAY!
3. Let Jeremy know if you have any discomforting issues with your present choir robe.
4. Thanks to John Casey for donating a new sound system to the choir room.
5. In your prayer time this week, pray for your choir buddy-- whether you think they need it or not! Just think of how awesome it is that we will all be praying for each other. Prayer is a wonderful gift that we can give and receive at the same time.
Grace and peace to you all, and thank you for continuing to be "church" to me and to one another.
TT
