Churches Visited on May 6

I attended the a.m. worship services of First Presbyterian Church in San Antonio on May 6. They have an 8:30 traditional service, a 9:30 traditional service, a 10:45 contemporary service and another 11:05 traditional service. Somehow, their pastor, Richard Kannwischer, manages to preach at all 4 services. They obviously lean toward the traditional side of things, but their contemporary service is beginning to outgrow all the others. This service is held in another meeting room, something that looks like the fellowship hall.

This church is very outward focused, always thinking of how to reach people. One way their doing it is in being creative with their children's Sunday school time. For about 4 years, they've been having 5 week lessons on one Bible story. 5 weeks to study, for example, the story of Jonah. One week, the kids go to a drama room and act it out; the next week they go to a computer room, and do computer activities related to the story. There are about 12 computers in the room; the following week might be an arts and crafts room; then they go to a video room, videotape themselves acting out the story, and then see themselves on the screen. There's another room, but I can't remember what they do there.

Another ministry the church focuses on is Habitat for Humanity. It reminds me of our own Carpenter's Helpers. If I were to go to their church next week, I'd see a big container for receiving diapers. The church family is buying diapers for mothers who cannot afford them. These are just a few of the things they do to reach their community.

In the contemporary service, I witnessed a moving Lord's Supper. I love how they do it at this church and others like it. They have congregants break off a piece of a loaf of bread, dip it in some grape juice, and eat the soaked bread. A couple of deacons or elders administer the elements. And when the pastor talked about how Christ's body was broken for you, he tore the bread in half - a very vivid picture of Christ's sacrifice for our sins.

In the evening, I went to Austin Stone, a contemporary church in, well, Austin - nondenominational and conservative. Mostly college age students and young families attend here. And every Sunday there's a lot of setting up and tearing down, because the service takes place in a high school gym. Once they arrange everything, they have 3 mostly identical worship services at 10:45, 5:00, and 7:00.

The worship had a concert feel. Hands were raising everywhere. It was a mixture of contemporary songs and arrangements of hymns. Everyone in the band was 20 something. The pastor, Matt Carter, who might be as much as 30 years old, was beginning a series on the 7 last sayings of Jesus from the cross. Each week of the series will focus on one of the sayings. The worship was led by Andy Melvin this week, although Chris Tomlin leads when he's in town.

Sadly, I remember only one person greeting me at Austin Stone, whereas I was greeted several times at the Presbyterian church. People say that FBC Wimberley is a friendly church. I hope everyone who visits our church goes away with that same impression.

Observations:

The Presbyterian church's traditional service was "high church" to the max. You would not hear any Gaither music here. The choir, accompanied by a very accomplished pipe organist, sang "The Heavens are Telling" from Haydn's Creation Oratorio, which is over 200 years old. Prayers were offered at various times in the service, along with the reciting of the Apostle's Creed. The prayers were read, but they were beautiful and eloquent, well thought-out responses to God's grace. After some of the prayers would be a choral response.

For all the tradition we experienced up to this point, the pastor's sermon that followed was very contemporary and relevant. The service flowed well from beginning to end. Then the pastor dismissed us with a heartfelt benediction. Hear me on this next point: As traditional as this service was, I believe as much worship of God was going on here than at the Austin Stone church I attended on Sunday evening. I don't want to offer much more commentary at this point. Suffice it to say that it was a wonderful Sunday of worship all around! God is good. His love endures forever! Amen.

I look forward to meeting with a couple of worship pastors this week, or at least talking with them by phone. I also will work on goals for music ministry in our own church. I'll be thinking deeply about all things related to music and worship this week. So I would appreciate you lifting me up in prayer.

The People You Meet Part II

After I left Cypress Creek Cafe, I visited some of the local businesses. I met L-----. He managed one of the shops. We talked about some spiritual things. He started by telling me about some Egyptian Sarcophagi that he had seen recently. I told him "that's cool. But do you know what an ossuary is?" "Yes," he said. "What about the recent Discovery Channel special on the ossuary that supposedly contained the bones of Jesus and some of his family?" I asked. He told me he didn't believe in all that mess, and that he's been a Christian for years.

I was glad to hear he's a Christian. At that point, a friend of his, D------, walked in. I introduced myself to him as the minister of music at FBC Wimberley. He asked me if I sang well. "I think so," I said. He said he'd like to come hear me at church one day. You see, he's not in the best of health, and he's planning his funeral. He'd like for me to sing at it, but he's going to listen to me first. Fine. He should.

Then D------ proceeded to tell me about how his mom and dad are buried on the same plot of ground, and that L---- will be buried there too. So R------ and T---- are probably relatives, I surmized. But after talking with them further, I put two and two together. "Do you guys live together?" I asked. In fact, they do. They are two gay men living in the same house. Now some Christians I know would have ended the conversation pretty quickly after that. Not me.

D------- said he'd accepted Christ as His Savior a long time ago. He is also convinced that he was born gay. He's not too fond of what he calls "preachers who bash people about the sin of homosexuality." I don't blame him. But I also told him that I believe the full Word of God. It's plain about the sin of homosexuality. So I'm not going to try to "suger coat" what it actually says. After having said that, I told him I was not there to judge him. After all, look at the kind of people Jesus hung around!

But what if these two guys actually walked in the doors of our church. And they just might, especially if one of them wants to hear me sing. What's going to happen? Will people greet them? I wonder. I want them to change their lifestyle. I can only pray that they do. But would our church be ready for a visit from them? Lord, help us to see people as you see them. And you know what, I probably will sing at this guy's funeral.

The People You Meet Part I

This morning after I took the kids to school I went to Cypress Creek Cafe for some breakfast. As I was walking out I met S---- (I'm protecting names here because I haven't asked his permission to write about him.). I've known S---- a long time, but today we talked about spiritual things. We got on the subject of suicide because a common friend of ours committed suicide a few years back. He asked me if I thought you'd go to heaven if you committed suicide.

What a question! I told him that, while the Bible doesn't teach that you'd go to hell for this, it does teach us to value human life. I continued to tell him that it's a pretty horrific thing to do, considering the loved ones left behind. He wasn't too sure about my answer and said he might have to study the Bible for himself on this subject. That's good. He'll find out that what I said was true. I said the most important question to ask is "what am I going to do with Jesus?"

I happen to know that my friend works all the time. I asked him to consider having a Bible study with me, on another day other than Sunday. I certainly couldn't meet with him on Sunday, and he works a lot on Sunday too. He said he might be interested in that, but also that he'd be interested in continuing the present discussion sometime in the near future. "Good," I said. I hope we get a chance to do so.

What about these people who work every Sunday? What about those who work on Wednesday nights? Could our church provide Bible study opportunities for these people. Or are we going to convey to them, that if they're really interested in our church, they're going to have to switch jobs so that they could join us for worship on Sundays. I got to thinking about this after Reggie McNeal of leadnet.org, discussed this topic at a recent conference. I hope we can soon reach out to those who work on Sundays.

My friend also told me about how he has studied many belief systems, including Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. This might be why he wasn't sure about my answer concerning suicide. Anway, I hope we do get a chance to talk again soon.

Hyde Park Baptist Church

I visited a choir rehearsal at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin last night. I discovered that no matter what size the choir, the same issues seem to come up: For example, trouble working syncopated rhythms, and "Texan" vowels. This was the sanctuary choir I was observing. 88 were in attendance.

As I walked into the rehearsal room, I was greeted by the music ministry assistant, with a name tag, and a card to fill out. Their music minister, Fred McNab, knows that I'm on sabbatical and will contact me soon for a lunch visit where we can discuss several things. I was handed a rehearsal schedule, and music which was in the same order.

Fred played voice parts from the piano for the first piece they rehearsed - "God of Wonders." This piece, along with the rest of the anthems rehearsed that night, just confirm that choral music in the church is getting more and more contemporary in rhythms and harmonies.

After that first piece, Fred stepped to the podium, where he conducted as two pianists accompanied. I'm not sure if one was playing the voice parts, and the other the piano part. But I thought it was interesting. The choir sang out very well; if anything, they sang out because they knew they wouldn't be heard individually. I'm afraid some people in our church choir are afraid to sing out too much because they're concerned they would be heard above the others.

The rehearsal continued with a fast pace; he did a great job of keeping everyone singing and on track. Unlike me, he did not go over any congregational music. By the way, the orchestra practices simultaneously in the sanctuary, while the choir rehearses in the music room. There was plenty of good humor in the room throughout the rehearsal. At the end Fred presented the college students of his choir a care package for their final exams - pencils, pens, paper, candies, etc. What a great way to recognize them and their efforts.

The choir Vice-President read prayer requests at the end of the rehearsal. Choir members picked up prayer request cards on the way into rehearsal. Individual requests were not taken at the end of rehearsal. The VP closed the rehearsal in a heartfelt prayer for the people mentioned on the cards, continuing with praise to God for inspiring the writers of the great music and lyrics they all just rehearsed.

The rehearsal lasted an hour and a half, with the end result that six different anthems were rehearsed. Also, he played a rehearsal CD on about 4 of the pieces, letting the choir sing along with it. In turn, they rehearsed without the CDs. The time went by quickly, and I look forward to meeting with Fred in the near future.

By the way, they have a very interesting Sunday schedule:

• 8:30 a.m. Traditional Service, in the Worship Center
• 8:30 a.m. Contemporary Service, in the Chapel
• 11:00 a.m. Blended Service, in the Worship Center

*I assume they have one Sunday School time in the middle, but I'll find out later from Fred.

They have a music staff of 10 people. Their music ensembles are:

• Exaltation Choir (11:00 Blended)
• Praise and Worship Team (8:30 Contemporary)
• Orchestra (11:00 Blended)
• Handbells Ensemble
• Chapel Choir (8:30 Traditional)*
• Reflections Choir (Periodic in Blended and Traditional Services)**
• 6 Different Children's Choirs (Periodically on Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings, as well as seasonal musicals.)***

*Interestingly, this choir is made up of high school students.
**This is their junior high choir.
***These choirs are based on age in school.

Maybe I can visit their two diferent styled worship services soon.

Sabbatical

As many of you know, I'm officially on sabbatical as of Tuesday of this week. Last week was a scramble to get ready for this extended period of study and reflection. This morning for 2 hours I went through piles of stuff from my office. Doing this kind of thing helps clear the mind. Also, I called Lake Hills Church in Austin to arrange a time to meet with their worship pastor. Like all of the worship pastors I meet with, I invited him to lunch in order to pick his brain about various things related to music ministry and the church in general. I'm waiting to hear back from him. I'll spend the rest of the day constructing a list of questions to ask the people I meet with. Most questions are my own; others are from our pastor, Mark Bryant.

I'm also reading books about how to do church in the new millennium. This includes not only music, but all aspects of church life. Mark and I have been talking a lot about this recently. So it will be very interesting to see how our church will to meet the challenges before us. Of course, this kind of stuff is on our minds right now for many reasons, not the least of which is that our church will be breaking ground very soon on a new campus! Yeah!

Back from Branson

I'm back from Branson, MO. Went there with some senior adults from our church. Everyone had a great time. And during the long 26 hours on the bus to and from, a lot of nice conversation took place. Sorry, I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera, but I have to tell you that the Pierce Arrow Theater show was about the best I've ever seen in Branson. I highly recommend it.

Biking in Austin

Had a lot of fun today. Our family went to Austin and biked about 8 miles around Town Lake. It was pretty cold and windy, but I look forward to the warmer weather, when we can take more of these bike rides. There was an area off the trail where we noticed people flying kites. I told my son, "What a shame. Those people could be home checking their email, surfing the internet, keeping their eyeballs glued to their computer screens. Just look at them! Instead, they're out here flying kites in the sunshine. What is this world coming to?!"