December 8, 1994: Hymn of the Month - "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
The text for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century. It was used in a call and response fashion during the vespers, or evening, service. The original text created the reverse acrostic "ero cras," which means "I shall be with you tomorrow," and is particularly appropriate for the advent season. A metrical version of five of the verses appeared in the 13th century, which was translated into English by J.M. Neale in 1851. Each of the five verses expounds upon one of the names for the Messiah:

"Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14, Mt 1:23) means "God with us"
"Adonai" (Exodus 19:16) is a name for God, the giver of the law
"Branch of Jesse" (Isaiah 11:1) refers to Jesus' lineage
"Oriens" (Malachi 4:2, Luke 1:78-79) is the morning star or daystar
"Key of David" (Isaiah 22:22) again refers to Jesus' lineage

Since the time of Neale's translation it has been altered considerably depending upon which hymnbook it appears in. The version here switches verses two and five and substantially changes some of the rhymes. Of all the alterations, however, our hymnbook is the worst! It eliminates three of Neale's verses and replaces them with a verse by Henry Sloane Coffin which takes a completely different thematic direction. When the new Presbyterian Hymnal came out, it not only failed to restore the original text, it changed the harmonization to one that can only be described as insipid. So much for progress...

December 5, 1994: My Musical Influences (I had forgotten all about this, but evidently a church I had sent my resume to wanted to know about my musical influences.)

In our phone conversation you asked me to include in my letter a list of influences. Since a straight list would make me look schizophrenic, I'll try to put it in narration form to give you a more complete picture.

I grew up in an independent Pentecostal church which concentrated on the gifts of the Spirit and a strict holiness life-style. Although I believed their message of salvation, my love of rock music cast me as an oustsider, and by the time I got to college I looked for a church that would be more inclusive. Throughout my college years I attended an Episcopal church, two Baptist churches and a variety of others, but I was never comfortable with either extreme: the Baptist seperationism or the Episcopal lack of belief. During my junior year in Salzburg, Austria I spent some time working with Operation Mobilization where I was able to seperate my Christianity from my (American) culture and make my first active decision for Christ.

The "Christian culture" had also been my main stumbling-block musically. After growing up with the best that the rock, jazz, and classical worlds had to offer, it was difficult for me to find anything appealling in what the Christian sub-culture had to offer. However, I gradually met more Christians that were dedicated to making first-rate art. I got involved in "The Christian Artisans Guild" in Rhode Island, and read books by those like Charles Williams and T.S. Eliot that made me realize that Christianity and great art was not only possible, but the best of both worlds.

When I moved to Pittsburgh for graduate work at Pitt, I joined Bellefield Presbyterian Church where I sang in the choir. Before this time I had lumped christian music together with church music. But I soon realized that christian entertainment music was very different from music that is used in the context of the worship of God. When the interim music director left i was the logical choice for a replacement. Since that time I have devoted more and more time to finding great music to enhance the services and learning about how Christians have worshipped through the ages, and how that should affect our modern worship.

This personal history is all here to say that my musical influences tend to spring from other sources than current Christian music trends. My musical training has mainly been the traditional study of theory, history and composition. My tastes run from the vocal music of Palestrina to the counterpoint of Bach to the free dissonance of Messiaen. In terms of popular musics I have played and studied jazz, performed in a new wave/punk group, a wedding band, a folk duo, and a number of other groups. My current collection of CDs includes Laurie Anderson, Amy Grant, Kurt Weill, Frank Black, and Hank Williams. I also have a keen interest in ethnic music, especially African drumming.

What this means in terms of my church work is that I don't have a specific genre towards which I gravitate. Instead, I have a broad base of musical styles and interests on which to draw to complete the larger picture of the church service. One of the things that I pride myself on at Bellefield is that we have done everything from Renaissance quartets to country using only people drawn from our 250 member congregation.

I hope this gives you a little clearer picture of my musical background.

November 10, 1994: Confessions of a "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" Hater
During a worship council meeting Jeanne Griffith suggested that "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" would be an appropriate hymn of the month for the Thanksgiving season. As the first Sunday of November rolled around and I still didn't have any better ideas, I decided I'd go with it even though I personally didn't like the song. "After all," I thought, "We'll only have to sing it for 3 weeks since 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' will start early for advent." Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not some elitist musical snob, but I've always lumped "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" together with all those other turn-of-the-century-watered-down-Strauss-wanna-be-revival hymns. All the same, I researched the hymn because I knew there would be those in the congregation that would want to know more about it.

Thomas Chisholm, the author of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and 1200 other poems was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1866, and he lived a pretty unremarkable life: he worked as a school teacher, a newspaper editor, and insurance agent, then he retired and spent his remaining days at the Methodist Home for the Aged in New Jersey. Unlike many hymns that have heart-wrenching stories behind them (for instance "It Is Well With My Soul"), "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" is inspired by the simple realization that God is at work in our lives on a daily basis. He wrote, "My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness."

Three weeks later, I still lump this hymn together with all those other turn-of-the-century-watered-down-Strauss-wanna-be-revival hymns. But now that I've sung it a few more times and thought about the words, it also reminds me that God doesn't only work in dramatic or miraculous ways, but also in simple, everyday ways. It also reminds me that Jesus has never failed me in the past, so I have no reason to doubt his faithfulness in the future.

September 29, 1994: Hymn of the Month - "My Jesus I Love Thee"
Those that say youth is wasted on the young might be surprised to hear that William Ralph Featherston (1846-1873) is believed to have written "My Jesus I Love Thee" at the age of 16!

Featherston, a Weslyan Methodist from Montreal, wrote the text at the time of his conversion and sent it to his aunt in Los Angeles. Somehow, the poem made its way to England where it was published anonymously in The London Hymn Book two years later. Adoniram Judson Gordon (1836-1895), who was compiling a Baptist hymn book, liked Featherston's text, but decided it needed a better tune than the one that was used in The London Hymn Book, so he wrote a new tune for it which he published in The Service of Song for Baptist Churches. This is the tune that is still used today.

It's astounding the variety of people, lands, and circumstances that came together in the creation of this song. Certainly God wanted it to be used in our worship of Him.

Dear (Mr. Jones),
As music director at Bellefield Presbyterian, I was very excited to read your letter of September 6. When one is involved in something on a daily basis it's often difficult to see progress; but a letter such as yours makes me realize that the goals I had for Bellefield's worship are coming to fruition. It was also a source of personal satisfaction that the song that you specifically asked for ("Sing to the Lord a New Song") was one that I wrote.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your contribution to Bellefield -- not only the check, but also the encouragement that your letter provided. Under separate cover you will be receiving the best source for praise songs that I have found: "Maranatha Music's Praise Chorus Book, 3rd Ed." In this letter I have enclosed a printout of the folder that contains all the praise songs that we use at Bellefield, with stars besides those that I feel work particularly well. You will find most of those songs either in the Maranatha book or in the packet of my songs.

Since this material is fairly self-explanatory, I think it will be more valuable to you to describe how we went about incorporating praise music into our services.

First of all, if your church is anything like ours, you will encounter some resistance from the older or more traditional members in your congregation to any change in worship. It's therefore imperative that anything new that is introduced into the service be of the highest quality possible. This is difficult because most praise music is poorly written. The only solution is to sift through the mounds of available music until you find something that you're comfortable with.

The other things I would suggest are:

1) Find competent musicians to lead worship.

2) Try to get more than one singer leading. This helps diffuse the performer/audience situation that can arise in worship, and also adds musical interest with harmonies, call and response, etc.

3) Try to introduce songs slowly so that even the least musical (or the most stubborn) can learn them. We tend to use a new song as an instrumental prelude the day we introduce it, tell the congregation that it's new and that they can join in when they feel comfortable, and sing it two weeks in a row so that it has a chance to sink in.

4) As you can see from our song list, we have a set repertoire from which we choose. All the people on the praise team keep a book with the same repertoire, as well. The advantage of this is that both the congregation and the praise team have a chance to build on what they already know. We never introduce more than one song at a time, so even though we're constantly adding songs and keeping things fresh, the congregation never feels lost.

5) Capitalize on groups in the church that are already using praise music. For instance, at Bellefield there are a number of small Bible studies that have a time of worship, there is also a college fellowship that has a large number of enthusiastic singers that really help the congregation learn new songs.

Sincerely,

Greg Scheer