St. Edmund's RICHARD SEYMOUR and the COMMUNITY OF CHOIRS 2008!
St. Edmund’s Church hosted its third annual San Marino Community of Choirs on Sunday, March 16. The event led by children’s choir director, Richard Seymour, featured Valentine Children’s Chorus, Valentine Voices, Carver Children’s Chorus, Carver 4th & 5th Grade Chorus, and St. Edmund’s Children’s Choir, music accompaniment by pianist Lisa Edwards and percussionist Michael Solomon. The Pasadena Boys Choir, led by director John Barron & accompanied by pianist Byron Espina, also participated in this chorale extravaganza.
St. Edmund’s church successfully sponsors this event every year. It is not only a celebration of music, but also an opportunity for members of the community to gather and enjoy the pure voices of children in an acoustical dreamland.
Disney Classics.................................................. arr. Alan Billingsley
Carver Children’s Chorus
Swinging On A Star..................... Johnny Burke & Jimmy Van Heusen
Valentine Children’s Chorus
Lilo & Stitch Medley..................................................... arr. Ed Lojeski
Carver 4th & 5th Grade Chorus
Wade In The Water...................... arr. Patsy Ford Simms & Andy Beck
St. Edmund’s Children Choir
Beatlesongs...................................................................... arr. Mac Huff
Valentine Voices
Over The Rainbow.................................... Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg
Cantique de Jean Racine ............................................................... Fauré
Go The Distance.............. Alan Menken, David Zippel, arr. Ed Lojeski
Pasadena Boys Choir
Let There Be Peace On Earth............ Miller & Jackson, arr. Mark Hayes
COMBINED CHOIRS
Pew in the Pews
Alan Wolfe writes on the recent Pew Foundation survey of religion in America
A survey on American belief overturns some scholars' theories
Released to the public late last month, the findings of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's survey on the American religious landscape became instant front-page news. Based on more than 35,000 interviews with Americans over 18, it is one of the most extensive surveys to date. A bare majority of Americans (51.5 percent) identify themselves as Protestant. Close to a majority (44 percent) have switched faiths at least once in their lives. One in three native-born Roman Catholics has left the church, which is increasingly dependent on immigrants to maintain its 23.9 percent of the American population. The percentage of those with no distinct religious preference is now 16.1. Nearly one in four Americans (37 percent) are intermarried.
The remarkable fluidity of American belief is not especially surprising to scholars; social scientists and demographers have long noted the degree to which Americans, rather than having their religion determined for them by their births, choose their faiths in an open and competitive market. In some ways, the major achievement of the Pew study is to bring to the attention of the public what is conventional wisdom among academics.
Yet other findings in the study shed new light on issues around which there has been no scholarly consensus. Three in particular are worthy of attention: the size and composition of minority faiths, the winners and losers in the religious marketplace, and the potential prospects of the religious right. Some scholarly thinking — and rethinking — is clearly in order.
Most surveys of American religious attitudes interview some 1,000 people, a sample size that allows for a more-or-less representative portrayal of the population as a whole. Yet that sample size also makes it difficult to obtain reliable findings on religions whose adherents are few. If a faith constitutes only 1 percent of the total share, a survey may uncover 10 of its adherents, or, depending on the luck of the draw, it may not, which means that any overall conclusions about the size of the group are unlikely to be reliable. One consequence has been that estimates of such nonmajority religions as Islam have been all over the map, ranging from 1 percent to 10 percent of the American population.
The size of Islam relative to other American faiths happens to be an issue of major significance to scholars of religion. For instance, Georgetown University's John Esposito has long argued that we need to speak to a Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition because the histories of all three faiths have been so intertwined. If studies were to show more Muslims than Jews in the United States, the case for not using the term "Judeo-Christian" to describe its religious character would be even stronger. Along similar lines, if Muslims were to be shown to have become the largest group in the United States that is neither Christian nor Jewish, that might be taken as evidence that we are about to experience what the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has called a "clash of civilizations" within America's borders.
But the Pew survey's findings unsettle both arguments: The lowest estimate usually cited of the Muslim population, it turns out, is too high. Only 0.6 percent of Americans adhere to the Muslim faith, equally divided between Sunni and Shia. If Pew is correct, there are more Unitarians (0.7 percent), Jehovah's Witnesses (0.7 percent), and atheists (1.6 percent) than Muslims in the United States. Nor are Muslims, as some scholars have suggested, anywhere near surpassing Jews as America's leading non-Christian faith; there are nearly three times as many Jews (1.7 percent of the population) as Muslims. Two other minority faiths are as important, in terms of sheer size: Greek, Russian, Armenian, and other Orthodox adherents (0.6 percent) and Buddhists (0.7 percent).
Such findings suggest that the problems scholars have had in characterizing the overall religious nature of the United States will increase. In ways that haven't necessarily been understood until now, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the term "Judeo-Christian" no longer makes sense, given how many Americans are neither. But the favorite terms to replace it — "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" or "Abrahamic" — seem equally inappropriate. It is not just that Buddhists, who do not trace their roots to Abraham, may outnumber Muslims, who do. It is that the combined percentage of those who identify themselves as either Hindu (0.4 percent) or from "other world religions" (0.3 percent) does so as well. We are not one nation divided into three monotheistic faiths. We are a nation characterized by many faiths, as well as by none.
Questions about the dynamics of American pluralism follow from these findings. No one is more important than that of the relationship between religion and morality. A common morality, founders like George Washington and John Jay believed, was dependent on a common religion. The fact that we now have so many religions in this country suggests either that no common morality is possible, or that, if it is, religion cannot be its most important source. The ways in which religious diversity either increases or detracts from speaking about the common good ought to be a subject stimulated by Pew's conclusions.
A second finding of the Pew survey important to scholars of religion concerns which religions gain and which ones lose in the marketplace. For many years now, it has been received wisdom that mainline, politically liberal Protestant churches have been the losers and conservative evangelical churches have been winning. That assumption, too, will have to be rethought.
The biggest losers among American religions turns out to be Catholics: As many as one in 10 Americans is a former Catholic. The findings do not allow us to establish cause and effect, so some observers may claim that people are leaving the Roman Catholic Church because it has become too liberal, while others blame the sexual-abuse crisis among priests and an out-of-touch hierarchy. Chances are, however, that the decline in Catholicism has more to do with intermarriage — 22 percent of Catholics marry outside their faith, compared with 10 percent of Hindus and 17 percent of Mormons — than with attitudes toward abortion or birth control.
Nor is it quite the case that conservative Protestant churches are the winners. According to the Pew survey, mainline Protestant denominations, including Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, were all losers, but that does not mean that evangelically oriented denominations were winners. The most interesting finding in that regard involves the Baptists, who lost most among all Protestant denominations. The term "Baptist" includes African-American, mainline, and evangelical churches, so we cannot specify precisely from the Pew data which of those groups is losing the most. But since the single largest component of the Baptist religion in America is the Southern Baptist Convention, which is evangelical, losses in the Baptist category make it highly unlikely that the Southern Baptists are growing to any significant extent. Evangelicals appear to be just as subject to the ups and downs of the religious marketplace as everyone else.
One theory that has gained widespread adherence among sociologists of religion is that the strict teachings of conservative churches, by demanding more of their members, appeal to those seeking something more meaningful than the bland and easy-to-swallow theology of mainline religion. But Pew has found that the strictest of all churches, at least in the sheer amount of proselytizing time and energy it requires, has the lowest overall retention rate: Jehovah's Witnesses. Pentecostal churches, also generally viewed as demanding, are growing, but barely. Orthodox Judaism attracts only 10 percent of all Jews. Most likely there was a movement in the direction of conservative religions a generation ago. It may have been the result of the attraction of stricter churches, although not all sociologists of religion agree about that. But whatever the case in the past, there is no strong evidence of strict churches attracting a disproportionate share of members now.
Political scientists interested in American religion, such as John C. Green, Clyde Wilcox, and Kenneth D. Wald, believe that the influence of the religious right may have peaked. The Pew survey provides strong evidence that they are right. If the religious world of adults in the United States is diverse and in constant flux, the religious affiliations of young Americans, who will be tomorrow's voters and citizens, are even more so. Three times as many Americans under 30 as those over 70 are not religiously affiliated. Mainline Protestants tend to be elderly, but so do evangelical Protestants; the differences in age distribution are minimal, suggesting that both groups are having problems attracting the young. If you want to find religious groups that have disproportionately large numbers of young people, you have to look at Hindus (76 percent of whom are under 50), Muslims (63 percent), and Buddhists (63 percent). As far as the young are concerned, the prospects for a Protestant majority, let alone a Moral Majority, seem bleak.
Those trends are likely to be compounded by the effects of immigration. Catholicism in the United States is well on its way to becoming an immigrant church, much as it was in the late 19th century when the bulk of its members were born in Poland, Ireland, or Italy. Although college campuses have increasingly attracted Asian students with strong evangelical ties, the percentage of white people among evangelicals as a whole was a whopping 81 percent. The number of minority worshipers among evangelicals was still higher than among mainline Protestants, though lower than among Catholics. But while conservative Protestant churches may be able to revitalize themselves by recruiting immigrants with pronounced conservative moral and religious views, so far there are no indications that is happening in any great numbers. Indeed, I would argue that continued immigration will likely contribute more to America's commitments to diversity and tolerance than to support for conservative causes.
The Pew study does contain methodological flaws, including a low response rate of 24 percent. Some of its findings, like the relatively low number of Muslims, may be due to problems associated with interviewing immigrants and will need further confirmation from other studies to become more widely accepted. Yet as surveys go, this is one of the most careful and comprehensive ever conducted on the American religious landscape. Students of American religion will be pondering its implications for years to come.
Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and a professor of political science at Boston College.
Youth ministry: A contemplative approach - spiritual education and educators HELP WANTED: Youth Leader to lead Sunday school and youth group programs for senior and junior high youth. No experience necessary. Start IMMEDIATELY. 8-10 hours a week. Call First Presbyterian. Every week local churches looking for someone--anyone--to work with their youth place ads like this one at nearby seminaries. Never mind that most seminary students do not belong to local churches, are overwhelmed with school work and are sorting out their own faith; these churches are desperate to find someone who will "do something" with their kids. Punch on to the job listings on the Youth Specialties Web site and you find the same phenomenon: hundreds of churches are eager to find someone who will form their children in the Christian faith. What's happened? Why are we so eager to hand the spiritual development of our young people to the first person we find who can locate the New Testament and needs a little part-time work? Have we forgotten that one of the most sacred of human activities is sharing the intimacies of our souls, our values and the visions of our hearts with children? This is not a task for overloaded students; it is the privilege of every Christian congregation. Just as a marriage can be strengthened and expanded or weakened and exposed through the raising of a child, so it is with a church's spiritual parenting. In the formation of children a congregation's spiritual life is revealed and potentially renewed. What do our youth ministries tell us about the health of our congregations? How does the spiritual formation of its children reveal a congregation's images of Christian discipleship? What does it say about the future of the church that we contract out the spiritual care of our youth? The problem goes far deeper than the neglect of catechetical duties. It is not that we've forgotten how to pass on our faith but that we often can't find any faith to pass on. We're afraid to face the questions, the honesty, the challenges of our young people lest they expose our own doubt, confusion and emptiness. What we fear most in our youth is not their rambunctiousness, but their lack of interest in the Bible, their boredom in worship, their dismissal of church doctrine. We fear their judgment of the church as trivial, even laughable. We don't know how to respond to their questions and behaviors. In unguarded moments we secretly agree with them, yet we hide our doubts behind the whir and buzz of worship and activities and, like the Wizard of Oz, shout, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" But the curtain must be pulled back. If we are to keep young people involved in the church and if we are to renew our congregations, we first must acknowledge that many of our current forms of youth ministry are destructive. Our current practice, promotion and publishing in regard to youth ministry are still grounded in models developed in the 1940s and '50s for white, suburban, middle-class youth. Although a variety of adolescent discipleship models have come out of communities whose ethnicity and socioeconomic status differ from the status quo, it is the suburban, middle-class forms that dominate the field. Existing strategies of youth ministry are limited and often ineffective because they fail to invite young people into Christian communities in living communion with the Spirit of Jesus Christ; instead, most youth ministries are formed around the following unspoken themes: * Entertainment. The entertainment model rises out of adult fears of secular society and adolescent freedom. This approach is designed to keep kids safe while creating attractive associations with religious institutions through ski trips, game nights, rafting trips and other fun activities. The "entertainment" model readily accepts the values of consumer culture. Programs are created and advertised like those of any secular youth club. A young person's Christian commitment is measured according to the products and events he or she consumes: "Did she attend the fall rafting retreat? The all-night paint-ball fest? Does he listen to Christian music? Does she own `What Would Jesus Do' bracelets and a matching cap and journal?" In this program-centered ministry, the staff, parents and church members act as administrators and chaperones. Though spiritual transformation might occur, it certainly isn't the primary focus. Churches are afraid that if they confront the market-driven values in which young people are immersed, youth will be turned off; better to offer easily consumable, culture-friendly programs with a digestible Christian coating. The results can be destructive. Treating youth as activity consumers often is a way of turning adults into customer service representatives, not ministers. Not surprisingly, the average youth director quits within 18 months, volunteers are difficult to recruit (it takes a lot of time and energy to keep young people entertained), and youth rarely make lasting commitments to the Christian faith. * Charismatic youth leader. In this approach, a congregation hires a minister (usually young, attractive and recently graduated from college or seminary) to be solely responsible for the spiritual well-being of young people. The unspoken assumption is that the youth director is the youth ministry. Church members and parents expect the youth minister to mediate the holy through his or her own spiritual charisma. This model is based on the old bait-and-switch ploy: people hope that the youth first will be attracted to this minister, who will at some point get them to transfer their attention to God. Such a congregation wants its youth leader to embody all the church's hopes and concerns for its young people. Depending on the constituency, youth ministers are expected to be substitute parents who mitigate the growing frustration and tension between adults and teenagers; hip babysitters who keep the youth occupied while the adults attend to the real business of the church; role models who set an example of Christian living that most parents are unable to match; pied pipers who lead youth into compliance with the values and practices of the adult church; and security guards who keep the adult congregation protected from the energies and disruptions of its adolescents. The youth-leader-as-savior approach, extrapolated from parachurch ministries like Young Life and Youth for Christ, has generally been destructive for all concerned. Alone and segregated from the church community, youth ministers are soon exhausted. Expected to be walking icons of the risen Christ, they are not allowed to be fallible, and their own need for Christian nurture goes unmet. Left as the sole mediator between the adult and youth congregations, youth ministers quickly become isolated, lonely and spiritually alienated. And even with the most well-intentioned ministers, the bait-and-switch strategy rarely works--teenagers often accept the youth minister as their personal savior but are rarely able to transfer their devotion to Jesus Christ. * Information-centered. This model is most concerned with presenting young people with religious instruction. It assumes that youth ministry consists simply of teaching Christian content through common educational practices. This is discipleship through spiritual information rather than transformation. The Spirit is never invoked. The youth minister acts as the bearer of knowledge and develops effective ways to dispense this knowledge, just as a high school math teacher would. Methods of instruction are chosen indiscriminately and often are grounded in social-science research rather than biblical scholarship or Christian practice. Those who succeed under this plan are adolescents who can parrot back the "right" answers regarding the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. The worst forms of this model are to be found in confirmation programs in which young people sit in classrooms week after week, absorbing lectures and "youth sermons" on Christian beliefs. Unfortunately, though such youth programs may convert young people to an interesting metaphysics, it's one they are likely to discard when they enroll in Philosophy 101. The Christian faith doesn't make sense unless one encounters the God who inspires theological musings and acts of Christian love. The power of the Christian faith is that it promises total transformation--body, spirit and mind. Limited to the intellect, religious formation becomes compartmentalized and often irrelevant. To reform youth ministries, we must return to that which makes the church unique. Any secular organization can provide fun events, dynamic recreation leaders and good moral instruction. Only the church knows how to awaken people to the liberating presence of God. This, our greatest gift, should be the center of our discipleship practices. IN 1993, after completing my third year of working 70 to 80 hours a week in a youth ministry based on entertainment and whatever charisma I have, I was on the verge of burnout. A friend convinced me to attend a spiritual formation retreat led by Morton Kelsey. I knew that "spirituality" was popular, and I went hoping to pick up a few new gimmicks for my ministry. But after three days of silence, biblical meditation and other contemplative exercises, I experienced a life-changing conversion. During a meditative exercise on the prodigal son, I encountered an overwhelming Presence that enveloped me with love and acceptance. In that moment I was the prodigal being welcomed home and celebrated. My vision of youth ministry changed dramatically. If God was really present with us, then it made no sense to place myself or my programs at the center of ministry. Instead of asking God to bless my programs, my job was to pay attention to how God was at work and then to follow. I became a disciple rather than a spiritual guru. I rewrote our curricula, allowing space and time for God in each meeting. Including Bible study and theological reflection, every youth gathering featured prayer exercises and moments of contemplation. I finally understood that our programs had taught plenty of lessons about God but had failed to give kids the space, time and tools for experiencing God. How can young people sustain an interest in theology, the Bible or even Christian living without first encountering the God revealed in Jesus Christ? And how can adults help youth encounter God if they are not themselves regularly encountering God in prayer and reflection? After three years of training in spiritual direction at San Francisco Theological Seminary and earning a master's degree in Christian spirituality, I implemented a contemplative approach to youth ministry at Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo, California. I invited six adults identified by our 80-member congregation as people who had gifts in youth work. All six committed to engaging in youth ministry as a spiritual practice. Rather than being chaperones or committee members, we wanted to be an intentional spiritual community. We met for an hour before the weekly youth group to share our lives, read scripture, pray and discern our call. We understood that our own desire for God would be our greatest witness to our youth, and that this meeting would keep us mindful of our own discipleship. For these gatherings of adult leaders I structured a "liturgy" that sought a balance between contemplating God and acting on behalf of youth (love of God and love of neighbor). Our meetings begin with a ritual, such as lighting a candle or singing a song--some acknowledgment that we've gathered together in the presence of Christ. This is followed by a check-in time, a moment for each person to share immediate concerns, events and experiences. We continue with community confession, an opportunity to bring up any hurts or affirmations left over from the previous week. The greatest part of the meeting is devoted to practice, a time to place ourselves before God and pay attention to how the Spirit is at work in our individual lives and in our ministry. We alternate between two practices. In lectio divina, an ancient form of listening to God through scripture, we often use a passage that reflects the theme for that evening's meeting. The passage is read twice, and each team member meditates on a word or phrase that seems to stand out. After a few minutes of silence we share our words or images and discuss how they relate to our own lives of faith. In our second practice, openings and blocks, a form of the Ignatian awareness examen, each group member reflects in silence on the previous youth meeting and asks God to reveal those moments when the group was "open" or "blocked" to God's activity. This is followed by prayerful reflections by the rest of the group on how God is present within the ministry. During the following question time the members of the ministry team check their call, usually by discussing, "Given what we've heard and shared, what is God's calling for us this week?" On alternate weeks, the group does some longer-term planning rather than discussing the question. Finally, we close by seeking a deeper intimacy with the Holy Spirit through offering prayers of intercession and gratitude. IT SOON BECAME evident to us that placing youth ministry within the context of spiritual formation was healthier and more sustaining for both the leaders and the ministry. Our ministry team's weekly gathering allowed it to tend the fire of the Holy Spirit at work in our church. The prayer practices helped keep our focus on the movement of the Spirit rather than on cultural trends or our own anxieties. Our ministry began to flow out of our lives and our discernment of the Spirit rather than curricula. Gathered to nurture young people in faith, we soon realized that we were being transformed by this ministry. The most surprising development was that people began to make long-term commitments to working with youth; they attested to finding the ministry enriching rather than draining. At present we have 19 people--a quarter of the church's membership--each devoting three hours a week to the ministry. Our whole church is experiencing renewal. Most important, young people are being nourished in faith within the life of the congregation. Youth who come from the community rather than the church or who don't attend worship now encounter five to eight adults each week who represent the congregation. The young people's spiritual gifts are now recognized by the congregation, and they've been given space to share them. Five of our youth help design and lead music in worship, two serve on our denominational session and one serves as clerk of the session. Each week at youth group, young people and adults together engage in various spiritual practices. For example, during this past Lenten season groups of adults and youth committed themselves to practicing and sharing different forms of spiritual examination. One group fasted on Thursdays, members of another called each other each evening and engaged in the Ignatian awareness examen over the phone, another group committed itself to intercessory prayer, and members of a fourth wrote letters of gratitude each day. Our hope is that we are offering young people a variety of spiritual practices and intergenerational relationships that will sustain their faith into adulthood and give them a place from which they can counter the destructive forces of our culture. WITH HELP from Andrew Dreitcer, director of the Graduate Certification Program in Spiritual Direction at SFTS, I designed a three-year project to test this contemplative approach to youth ministry. In 1997, sponsored by SFTS and Youth Specialties and funded by the Lilly Endowment, we gathered 15 churches from diverse racial-ethnic, socioeconomic, geographic and denominational settings to help us with our research. In February 1999 we completed the fourth of five training sessions. At these weeklong events, two members from each congregation have received training in contemplation, discernment, adolescent spirituality, the leading of spiritual exercises with youth and the contemplative structure of youth ministry leadership described above. Here is what we've noticed in participating congregations: * Individual spiritual renewal. Youth ministers report feeling more integrated into the church community and experiencing a closer companionship with the Holy Spirit. Many have also described a radical deepening in their own discipleship. As a volunteer at an Episcopal Church in Breckenridge, Colorado, stated, "I now see a thousand blessings in each day." A youth minister from Bayport, Minnesota, said that she's "now able to find a sense of rest and peace in the midst of her ministry and family life." * Redesign of youth ministry structures. At the participating churches, youth ministries are no longer run by one person but involve between six and 20 adults. For example, First United Methodist Church in Valparaiso, Indiana, went from two to 16 adults who each volunteer more than three hours a week. Members of these communities report how significant their involvement has been for their own spiritual development. A Presbyterian pastor in Oregon stated, "I was very close to burnout.... This model of leadership that focuses on a group of people in community, listening for God, has kept me in the ministry." * Congregational reformation. Although designed to shape youth ministries, the project has had a dramatic effect on the structures of participating congregations. Churches have been eager to adapt this approach to ministry and to leadership in committee meetings, leadership groups and adult study groups. Grace Presbyterian Church in Paramount, California, now uses the meeting liturgy described above in its session meetings and adult groups. Most of the participating congregations have redesigned worship to allow time for silence, meditative singing, biblical meditation and other contemplative practices. One pastor reported, "By implementing some of the tools from the project we feel more like our church work is connected with our life in Christ.... This becomes inspiring and invigorating for all involved ... and the business gets done." * Youth engaged in spiritual practices. Churches are regularly involving youth in forms of contemplative prayer and other spiritual exercises. The youth director at Valparaiso's First UMC reported that junior high school students overwhelmingly named lectio divina as the highlight of their confirmation class. Using clay and other art media in prayer has become a regular practice for the youth of First Christian Church in Morgantown, West Virginia, and silence and Christian meditation are common elements of the youth ministries at Colchester Federated Church in Connecticut. At Sleepy Hollow the lives of our youth testify to how this approach can transform a church: A 16-year-old boy whose parents are not involved in the church and who once was kicked out of school for drug and alcohol abuse now helps lead the singing in our worship service and is active in school and church. Adults and youth spent two days at the all-church retreat discussing a three-day solitary fast in which six of our seniors will participate as a rite of passage. At a recent session meeting, the adult members were embroiled in a debate over what legal actions to take against the owners of a neighboring property. Finally, one of the youth members said, "I think we should just pray for them." All previous proposals for action were tabled, and the session began to pray for the neighbor. These "fruits" capture the essence of this new/old approach to adolescent spiritual development. Rather than entertaining them, we are inviting youth to be transformed. Rather than providing a solitary youth leader, we offer a community of disciples who seek to walk with youth toward a deeper intimacy with God. Rather than handing young people statements of faith, we give them the space and tools to recognize and act with the One who is beyond all theological formulations. We are claiming this work as a church, inviting young people into the intimacies of our hearts and rediscovering the indescribable power of the Risen Christ who forms, sustains and calls us by name, whatever our age may be. Mark Yaconelli directs the youth ministry and spirituality project at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California.
THE MUSIC MINISTRY AT ST. EDMUND’S
As many of you have noticed, there is something incredible happening at church on Sundays at 10:00. The St. Edmund’s Aeolian-Skinner Restoration and Enhancement project is finally beginning to assert itself, thanks to both the near completion of the Choir and Swell organs (right side chambers) and the installation and activation of several ranks of pipes in the Great and Pedal organs (left side), providing the bigger, more “stereophonic” sound. More importantly, these developments have been greatly assisted by the dedication and attention given to the day-to-day progress of the restoration by our new Director of Music, Organist, and Organ Curator, Robert Hovencamp.
In addition to keeping track of the progress of Rosales Organ Builders (our restorer), Rob has clearly taken the choir and our entire music program to a new level, with the selection of sophisticated, yet accessible, anthems, hymns and contemplative music during the offertory and Eucharist. His choices for Palm Sunday and Easter services will surely make this a memorable year for our church.
As I reported at the Parish Meeting a few weeks ago, we have successfully raised the original contract price for the organ renovation ($406,000 -- $106,000 of which was from a variety of individual and family contributors from $35 to several thousands of dollars) and have nearly funded the first additional project—the exterior metal pipes to the left and right of the Chancel—which, as many of you have seen in the “Photoshop” renderings, really do announce the arrival of a whole new concept of the intimate church organ to the Greater San Gabriel area. We have only $12,000 yet to raise to fully fund this beautiful addition. We are in the process of designing an appropriate plaque to be placed in the Narthex acknowledging all of our donors.
In the future, Mr. Rosales has recommended the addition of a 32’ Reed (Trombone) to the Pedal organ (it actually is 32’ “tall”, mitered to fit in the chamber). Few other churches of our size have a 32’ Reed. It produces such slow frequencies, the sound is something you can really “feel” as well as hear. If installed, Rob will have a far larger repertoire to select from for use at our regular services and St. Edmund’s will clearly have the instrument that must be played throughout the musical community. Again, part of the plan is to draw to our church those potential congregants for whom music is a critical aspect of their worship and who may therefore consider membership. Additionally, having the 32’ will set apart our church from others when considered as a venue for recitalists and small orchestral groups. The estimated cost of this rank is approximately $60,000.
Also recommended is the addition of a “vox humana” voice, which would allow the proper performance of a considerable amount of 19th and 20th century sacred music. The estimated cost of this addition is approximately $____________. It would be installed in the Swell organ chamber.
But the ultimate goal of the Music Committee is to secure the future of music at St. Edmund’s, both financially and structurally. We need to ensure to our children and their children a spiritual oasis of faith, reason and hope in this turbulent world together with the opportunity to appreciate a first class presentation of sacred instrumental and choral music of the Anglican Tradition. To the extent that the Music Program is a vital aspect of our future parish growth (together with our robust youth program and inspirational pastoral leadership from Father George and Father Ni), we ask you to help complete this project and support the Music Ministry by considering again (or, for the first time) contributing to both the finalization of the organ project and the new Music Endowment Fund which will secure a high quality, and, hopefully, new member-attracting, music program well into the future. We all know that the Music Department is now in great hands with the appointment of our new Organist/Choir director, Rob Hovencamp.
It does not take a lot of imagination to think of where we would be today without the sacrifice and foresight of those who came before us at St. Edmund’s who provided to us our beautiful grounds, meeting and fellowship buildings, original organ and, more recently, the renovation of our church. In this fashion, thanks to the current generosity of our congregants, friends and foundations, this exciting restoration and enhancement of the “American Classic” Aeolian –Skinner is close to completion. In addition to the organ’s principle use during our Sunday services, the Music Committee is planning on a series of recitals and concerts later this year to show off the completely restored organ and our church as the venue for intimate-venue programs.
Over 100 congregants and friends of St. Edmunds have generously contributed to this endeavor. On behalf of the Committee, I extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to each of you. The final fundraising push is now on to complete the entire project, as envisioned by our master restorer, Manuel Rosales, and to provide the seed money for a St. Edmund’s Music Endowment to secure the financial support for Music at St. Edmund’s now and well into the future. Be part of it!