I am delighted and honored that I was invited to submit an article for publication with Church Music Forward, a community of and resource for church musicians that claims as its mission "preserving traditions with imagination." Getting to know new friends Martha Burford and John-Westley Hodges, founders of CMF, has been a blast and I can't wait to hang out with them at the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy in July! I've included the text of my article below, but before that is a link to the entire newsletter. There are a myriad of wonderful gems contained therein, both reflections on the vocation of church music ministry and practical advice for the daily practice of church music. I encourage you to take a look and then subscribe to CMF's email list so you'll be alerted when the next newsletter comes out.Church Music Forward June 2015 NewsletterHow Might We use Music to Bless People? That was question I had never been asked before, and I was immediately intrigued and wanted to know more about what motivated its asking. I was asked this question in the context of a job interview at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Park Ridge, IL, the parish I just this week began serving as Interim Minister of Music, and I immediately knew that I was in the right place. I responded by confessing that I had never before been asked that question, had never thought about music ministry in quite that way before, and that I thought it was exactly the question that leaders of the church’s song need to be asking.Blessing is at the heart of what God does and we do in the context of the Eucharist. We offer our selves, our souls and bodies and a portion of the gifts we have been given along with the gifts of bread and wine and we bless them – God blesses them. God blesses us and we are transformed to be more and more Christ’s body so that we, that Christ, might be a blessing to the world. With all of this blessing going on, it seems meet and right that the music we offer to the glory of God and the edification of God’s people should bless people as well.A few months ago I posted the following on Facebook, “When choosing music for liturgy, one must not only concern oneself with things liturgical, musical, and theological. One must also concern oneself with things pastoral, and sometimes this needs to win out over the other three.” I received several responses to this statement – some enthusiastically supportive, some needing clarification around the intent of the statement, and others that made me feel a bit like I was being accused of heresy. I think both the statement and the various responses relate intimately to the question of how we might bless people with music, particularly in the context of liturgy.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1, NRSV
Sometimes, in an effort to conform to either an actual or simply a perceived standard of liturgical, musical, or theological orthodoxy, we church musicians forget that the God we serve loves the world, God loves each of us so much that God was willing to “take frail flesh and die.” While theological, liturgical, and musical integrity is most certainly important, conforming to overly stringent standards of orthodoxy does not in any way cause God to love us more. God delights in our existence and, I believe, delights when our souls soar to the heights of heaven as we sing a robust hymn, listen to a motet, play a banjo, clap on beats 2 and 4, and enjoy a Vierne organ symphony. It is this delight of God that we are called to show forth in our music ministry. You may notice that all of this involves and is about people. All ministry – liturgical, musical, etc. involves the people whom God so loves and our ministry is to be grounded in the love of God’s people. This is people work – pastoral work. If we make the most pure, sublime, correct music, but have not the love of God’s people at the forefront of our work, are we not little more than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals?With the love of God and God’s people at the center of our calling as ones who minister through music our choice of music for liturgy will necessarily focus at least at some level around the pastoral needs of the people with whom we minister. There are times when a certain piece of music may be completely appropriate theologically, liturgically, and musically and completely inappropriate pastorally. This is not to say that any music should be sung that is theologically, liturgically, or musically inappropriate should be sung simply because it might seem to be pastorally appropriate.Like one of the people who commented on my Facebook post pointed out, there certainly is a (classically Anglican) middle way here. When we prayerfully choose music for our congregations and our choices are theologically, liturgically, and musically grounded AND ever-attentive to the pastoral needs of our people, God takes great delight, we offer to God our most humble and hearty thanks, and the music we offer blesses God and the people with whom we minister.Beau Surratt Interim Minster of Music, St. Mary’s Episcopal Churchbeausurratt@stmaryspr.org