2020 Principles: Music Ministry Matters

Goal: Growth and spiritual development occur in community and context

• Divine spark of musical pursuit can never be extinguished. It can be nurtured and shared.  #MusicIsAtCoreForMe creativity and arts matter. Innovation and balance. Spreads like fire.
• It is not just about developing skills and ability. Our goal must be to live together. To “sing” together. And strive to be better Christians together.  #ChoirIsLife
• Our identity is intertwined with our choirs. Our performances. Our groups. Our classes. Our family. But it is FOCUSED through our faith.  And blessed in community and communion.  Around the table. And in service together to others. Be. Love. Serve. Repeat.
• Style does not really matter. Execution matters but only a little bit and there is a line. How the performance is received and it’s Intentionality to be better does matter. For sure.  To strive. To seek. Journey is the goal.  #JustSing
• Where there is deceit, disregard and division the uniform purpose of spiritual growth and worship of a holy God is diminished.  Worship is about the senses and the emotions and submission to someone greater than we might even imagine.  Unity of purpose does not require uniformity.  #Community via common ground of music.
• Our worship must spur and inspire community and service and a desire for more of both.
• Psalms. Hymns. Spiritual Songs. — these are the domain of the music minister but they are interlaced with the Word. With the divine spark , the Holy Spirit,  with sound and fury and passion at every turn.   #who&what we worship and how.
• Moments provide opportunity for contacts, contexts, and relationship building within life groups and across barriers. Money, jobs, education, needs, skills.  Be.Love.Serve.Repeat

"I am amazed again and again how the mastery of successive minute technical details releases floods of spiritual understanding."
              Robert Shaw in "Dear People"

"Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other." - Mere Christianity CS Lewis