[Our Chancel Choir sang four beautiful anthems for our Music Sunday. This anthem, “Hymn to the Trinity” by Van Denman Thompson concluded our 10:30 worship service in a grand way. We also had a trombone solo, a vocal solo, and our Bell Choir offered a spirited rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” In addition to this being Music Sunday, we also recognized our graduates. After they introduced themselves and shared their future plans, we joined in offering a prayer of blessing over them. May God bless them as they prepare to begin this new chapter in their lives!]
God of resurrection and new life, we have a very simple prayer on this Sunday morning. We just want to say thank you for blessing our church with outstanding singers and musicians to help us honor and glorify the Risen Christ every time we gather for worship.
Thank you for our Chancel Choir, our Bell Choir, and for Peter, Jeff, and Kevin who serve on our music staff. They help us to express in song what we find difficult to articulate with words alone; your amazing love made known to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Over this past year, our music ministry has inspired us with Sunday worship anthems and solos, a special Veterans’ Day anthem with a brass ensemble, Christmas Eve worship music, and more recently during Holy Week, a very moving performance of Faure’s Requiem performance with the Ohio University Choral Union. We have been the recipients of their gift of music and we are eternally grateful.
God of resurrection and new life, in this world that often is deaf to the spoken word of your good news, we turn to music to share our Easter faith of hope and salvation. May the harmony of your all inclusive love be heard by those who feel excluded from the church. May the crashing crescendo of your redemption be heard especially by those who feel separated from you. May the beautiful melody of your abiding presence and guidance be heard by those who are facing the pain and brokenness of this world, especially those who were impacted by the recent shooting at a California synagogue.
God of resurrection and new life, thank you for our old songs of faith, but we also thank you for new songs yet to be composed and heard. May our faith always find artistic expression through the music of our hearts. We pray this in anticipation of that time when we will join all the saints in one mighty chorus in singing, “Allelulia! Alleluia!”
As your Easter people, we join together in praying the words that Jesus taught us to say together,
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
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