Dear friends,

It's amazing how food becomes a part of most every gathering-- family dinners, baseball games, church fellowship events, lunch meetings, airplane rides, pizza parties, ice cream socials, and even our choir rehearsals. Jim Keck often reminds us that Jesus was always anxious to gather a dinner party-- often with unlikely guests. The food gives us a reason to gather, but it's what happens before, after, and between courses that makes the dining together incredibly worthwhile.

When I went to serve First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, MI, I was fresh out of conservatory, and of course I knew everything! People who chose to sing in the choir were so LUCKY to get to sing for me. It was important that we sing perfectly each and every week and that our repertoire be impressive, challenging, and diverse. Our rehearsals needed to be intense; all-work, focused completely on musical excellence. People came right at start time and left quickly afterwards. I found out a few weeks into the season that even singers who had been in the choir for 20 years or more only knew 3 or 4 others from the group.

A friend suggested that it might be good for me and the choir to start spending some time together outside of rehearsal to get to know one another. I was skeptical. My job was to get them to sing well. Wouldn't that be a waste of time just to hang out? These people wanted to sing-- not to socialize. It was a choir-- not a play group. Finally, I allowed my introverted side to give in, accepting the possibility that might awaken from spending time with the choir. So, we all gradually started to have meals together, to meet for coffee, to go out for brunch after church, to get a drink after choir. We started to go to plays together to support some of our church's youth, to go hear some the children's choir kids in their school concerts. All of that 'wasted' time became rich opportunity to build relationships and to strengthen our sense of belonging to one another, and it steadily made our music richer, fuller, more authentic, more organic, and more true. I began to get to know the stories of the people in the choir. I began to realize that I was the one who was lucky that those beautiful people chose to sing with me! Amazing people with rich stories-- heavy challenges, great responsibilities, incredible talents, and wonderful families-- all chose to give their time to our group each week-- WHAT A GIFT! WHAT A BLESSING! They could choose to do anything in the world on Wednesday and Sunday, but they chose to be together and to sing praise to God-- what a holy miracle! We developed a motto that we all believed: "The choir needs me, and I need the choir!"

Today I am inviting you to host a dinner- for- eight (or lunch or brunch!) gathering at your home. You may choose any day and time in March 2010-- let me know the date you choose and the time, and then we will randomly select guests for you. Please respond by Sunday, February 21 so that we can gather guests on February 24 at rehearsal. Please accept this opportunity to extend your hospitality and to enable your gathering to inspire community and friendship among the choir.

We will soon be inviting you to attend a dinner- for- eight gathering at a fellow choir member's home. Please accept the invitation when it comes, even among your busy schedules, even though you might think it a waste of time. Everyone's got to eat, and while you're savoring the gift of food, you might as well have a chance to build a deeper connection with some of your choir friends. And, if we need any theological encouragement, we can be certain that Jesus would encourage us to the table, too!

Love and peace,

TT

p.s. Sunday morning we will be singing both services, gathering at 8:00 in the choir room. We will sing LAETATUTS SUM and AMAZING GRACE and the hymnsheet that you picked up at rehearsal. Looking forward to seeing you then.

Dear friends,

Thanks to the amazing John Casey and the magnificent Becky Shane we have two new tools for you as we continue our preparation for the Brahms' REQUIEM. Here, on the blog, you have access to the markings that you need to have in your scores-- this is the same material that many of you have copied from the handouts so far. Others, now you have the materials. Let's get those scores marked! : )

Secondly, there is now a recording of the REQUIEM in English here on the blog to enable even more efficient practicing. This performance was done by...the ABENDMUSIK CHORUS... in the 80s. YAY!

See you all soon, and thanks for your continuing preparations for this exciting project.

TT

Dear friends,

I look forward to singing a doubleheader with you on Sunday morning. We plan to assemble in the choir room at 8:15 so that we have plenty of time to get warmed up before we join with the Choristers and the Plymouth Ringers in our collaboration of SET THE SUN DANCING. We also will sing NOT ONE SPARROW IS FORGOTTEN. It is a challenge for many of us to get up and running on a Sunday morning to sing the early service, but know what a gift your presence will be to the 9:00 congregation, and know how excited the children's choir is to have the opportunity to sing with the grown up choir. Do not take for granted how much your sacrifices can mean to others. Your generosity is so appreciated! When the Plymouth Choir sings for worship, worship takes on a new dimension and communicates and radiates more fully!

Since our Plymouth Choir is so large, it makes it challenging for us to sing in the chapel for Saturday evening services or for the 11:59-- with the scenery that serves as a backdrop for that service. To help share our adult choral music ministry with those parts of the congregation, we have created a new small choir of about 10-12 singers that will periodically sing Saturdays and even more occasionally on Sundays at 11:59. As we continue our ministry together, I hope we can all continue to find creative ways to serve the community of faith here in its many forms of gathering. Just as the new services (Saturday and 11:59) have not taken away from the important ministry of our traditional Sunday morning services, neither will these new choral initiatives challenge the strong foundation we already have in place in the Plymouth Choir. We operate with abundance mentality rather than scarcity thinking-- there is plenty of great music for us all to do, plenty of wonderful opportunities for us all to share, plenty of ways for us to all sing praise and thanks to our God-- yet another blessing of this wonderful congregation and community.

Grace and peace to you, and many thanks for all you will bring to worship TWICE on Sunday!
TT