Music at AkronMennonite Church

How does Akron Mennonite Church (AMC) do music? To answer that question, other questions must be asked. What guidelines does AMC follow when planning services to inspire and nurture the congregation? What is the congregation’s musical history, and how can church leadership be sensitive to the different musical preferences of the church community? What standards are used when evaluating a piece of music or a musical event to be hosted by the church? What do we tell potential new members when they ask about AMC’s music program?

This document addresses the above questions. Elements basic to a job description for AMCs Minister of Music and some unspoken assumptions about the church’s music program can be found in this document as well.

Information is organized under the following topics:

1. Singing
2. Song leaders
3. Learning new music
4. Acoustics
5. Choirs
6. Instruments
7. Children’s music
8. Leadership
9. Professional musicians
10. Pastoral role of music

Singing

Akron is a singing congregation. Scratch us and we sing, bruise us and we sing, make us happy and we sing. The impulse to sing is buried deep in the congregation’s DNA — perhaps because most of the church’s original members were educated in our church colleges, where congregational four-part singing was emphasized, or perhaps because many of AMC’s founding members were gifted singers! At AMC it is very important that we pass on to subsequent generations our love of singing in four-part harmony.

We select the songs to be sung on a given Sunday morning with great care, considering the context of the service, the words of the text and the mood or spirit of the morning’s theme. AMC musicians see diversity in style as a tool for producing appropriate music on a given Sunday, and they have a rich variety of resources available for various music styles.

Traditional — The church has used seven different hymnals and supplements in its nearly 50-year history: The Church Hymnal (CH), Songs of the Church (SOC), The Mennonite Hymnal (MH), Sing and Rejoice (SR), The Hymnal: A Worship Book (WB) , Sing the Journey (STJ) and our own compilation, With Many Voices (WMV). For many who worship at AMC, singing together in this traditional style is one of the most important things we do.

Although the Church and Sunday School Hymnal, an important Mennonite hymnal, was never used at AMC, it was deeply imprinted in the memories of many of AMC’ s original members, and the music from that hymnal surely informed and influenced much of the congregation’s singing, up to the present time.

Ecumenical — Historically, Mennonite hymnody is borrowed material. (Only recently have Mennonites honestly attempted to find their own voice in hymn tunes and lyrics.) Consequently, AMC, like other Mennonite congregations, has a strong tradition of ecumenical music in our History, yet it feels like our own. That influence has been enriched more recently by the wider Mennonite church’s participation in activities of Choristers Guild and The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada.

Contemporary — This style includes a wide variety of Christian music. While some Mennonite churches have had great controversy about the use of contemporary music, AMC has not, largely because we have used contemporary music when appropriate. (Perhaps because it has never been a forbidden music form at AMC those who enjoy it have been happy with its now-and-then inclusion in our services.) Perhaps the use of contemporary music has not become a dividing simply because people are tolerant of each other’s different tastes. Our church members seem to realize that we need to give each other the grace to express our diversity within the AMC family.

Global — AMC is a globally focused congregation. The close proximity of MCC, the ties between individuals and MCC and genuine interest in reaching out to the world “out there” beyond the walls of the church building — these factors contribute to a global consciousness at AMC, and our music reflects this. Almost every Sunday one finds selections such as “If you believe and I believe” or “Asithi: Amen” listed in the bulletin. The global dimension of our music is brought to the congregation via the international experiences of our members.

Mennonite Hymnody — Good Mennonite hymnody is rooted in the annual worship and music leaders workshop held at Laurelville, Pennsylvania, and in the pastors’ week events held at Elkhart, Indiana (or other ancillary workshops held at AMBS in Elkhart) and Harrisonburg, Virginia (Eastern Mennonite Seminary). The Laurelville workshop is a popular event for practitioners of Mennonite worship and music, and participants tend to come from churches that are leaders in their conferences. As we have done historically, we Mennonites continue to borrow music from other traditions, but thanks to the above workshops and influences, we currently tend to borrow more carefully and deliberately, choosing what is appropriate to our Anabaptist orientation. We create our own new Mennonite music less aggressively than we borrow the music of others, but we are, nevertheless, making progress in terms of developing our own hymnody.

Song leaders

At AMC an individual leads the singing. Since many in the congregation know how to sing and/or are trained in music, the song leader needs to give only minimal direction. Because of our strong tradition of following a song leader, however, following a piano or singing spontaneously is relatively difficult. The discipline of learning to sing with a piano or singing spontaneously would enrich our church’s musical repertoire, and for this reason learning these skills should be promoted. People who join AMC from other Mennonite churches are sometimes astonished at the level of the singing. We have a wide variety of song leaders who bring their different strengths to the congregational singing. Occasionally AMC offers workshops that deal with specific issues and methods of song leading.

Learning new music

Learning new music at AMC is a challenge. What kind of music do we want to learn, and how much time should we spend working on learning new music? What is the best method for teaching new music to the church? Over the years AMC has used the choir to teach new music: it has also used small groups for this, and sometimes the song leader simply goes over the new music with the entire congregation on a Sunday morning. We have discovered that perhaps the most effective way to teach new music is to line out the phrases one by one, engaging in a back-and-forth exchange between the teacher and the learner. Repeating each syllable of song in this way engages the listener and forces him or her to practice the music immediately. But using this method of instruction for the whole congregation is impossible, and an adaptation of the concept can be useful.

Acoustics

Moving to the new sanctuary from the old assembly room after AMC’s building program was completed had a detrimental affect on AMC’s singing because the acoustics in the new sanctuary were inferior to those of the old assembly room. From time to time the congregation is asked to stand and move to the middle of the room to sing, which greatly improves the quality of the singing.

Choirs

AMC historically has had love-hate relationship with the notion of a church choir. When we somehow get a choir together, we genuinely appreciate their music, but getting a choir to practice and perform, at least for more than a season, is always a struggle. Many music lovers in AMC wish that maintaining a choir would be more easily accomplished. Finding leadership for a choir and getting people to commit to a practice and performance schedule partially explain AMC’s erratic success with choirs. AMC has the potential for being a strong choir-singing church; we are blessed with many excellent voices, which are in demand. AMC singers perform with Lancaster Symphony Chorus, Wheatland Chorale, Lancaster Chamber Singers, Lancaster/Franconia Singers and the Lancaster Opera Company.

AMC’s church choir can pull together and do a credible presentation on Sunday morning, but the music is often rehearsed at the last minute, and the participants wind up wishing they had had more time together to produce an even better performance!

AMC’s choir has, occasionally, when seriously challenged, performed large choral works well. Over the years such performances included: Amahl and the Night Visitors, Seven Last Words of Christ, Vivaldi’s Gloria and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah. On these occasions outside instrumentalists were added to AMC’s instrumentalists to expand our resources.

Another choir functioning within AMC is the men’s choir, which started meeting 14 years ago, and meets every third Sunday, for 10 months each year. The early years were a struggle, since the choir only rehearsed one Sunday morning per month at 8:00 AM. Due to the persistence and vision of Warren Leatherman, the group of about 25 men matured into a rather professional sounding choir. They ocassionally sing at other churches on Sunday mornings.

Instruments

The piano is the instrument most often seen and heard at AMC. A family in the church loaned the grand piano to AMC shortly after the congregation moved into the new sanctuary, and several years later AMC purchased the piano. Some church members have strong feelings against using the piano to accompany singing. Generally, AMC uses the piano to supplement the singing of new hymns and contemporary hymns, although the church has not adopted a formal policy on the matter. It is played  regularly by members and attenders of AMC for gathering music and offertory music.

Strings are the second most often seen and heard instruments at AMC, thanks largely to the significant impact of the Martin family (Eric, Emily and Amy). Woodwind instruments have been used occasionally in large and small groups. Brass instruments have not played a large role at AMC because the church family has only a few teachers and students of brass. Recently, an intergenerational orchestra has played for a few festival Sundays a year.

Orff instruments (xylophones, metallophones. and glockenspiels) came to the congregation some years ago as a vehicle to involve children more easily in the worship service. Several families gave AMC the instruments, and they are frequently used. The most recent instrumental addition at AMC was a memorial gift: a 3-octave set of hand chimes (also called tone chimes or melody chimes). It has been used by youth and adults to accompany hymns and choir anthems.

Frequently members play guitar, flute, recorder, oboe, clarinet, French horn, trombone, and percussion instruments in AMC services. Drumming is quite popular, and the church has a number of promising young drummers.

Children’s music

AMC has not managed the children’s music program consistently over the years, nor has a systematic plan for children’s music been developed. The children have music time prior to the Sunday school hour, and sometimes they perform for the larger congregation. Some in the congregation wonder if music time with the children isn’t perhaps simply a babysitting time for the children while their parents enjoy coffee hour!

Part of the dilemma is related to leadership and assigned responsibility and part has to do with getting children’s music on the official church agenda. For many years, no group in the congregation has taken ownership of the problem of developing a plan for educating AMC’s children in music. Recent years has seen a group that has attempted to organize a sequential learning curriculum that introduces hymns and global music to the children, who in turn introduce the newer songs to the congregation.

On several occasions musicals have been rehearsed and performed by the children of AMC, with great success. Musicals such as Malice in the Palace, 100% Chance of Rain, Jonah, Three Trees, and Why the Chimes Rang are a few examples of musical fun and learning. In addition, who could forget the summer rendition of Godspell or Smoke on the Mountain? These events require vision, planning and commitment on the part of the entire congregation!

Leadership

For many years leadership of the music program was done on a volunteer basis, and it was lodged with the music committee, which spent a lot of time selecting names for assigned slots on the worship committee. The worship committee, in turn, had overall responsibility for planning worship (including the music for worship services). In 1990 the worship committee was dissolved, and the pastoral team took over the work of the worship committee, assisted by the music committee. The church paid two women, Cheryl Eshleman and Marcy Hostetler, for taking care of the music details of worship services. Eventually AMC’s leadership structure again changed, and these two positions were dropped; volunteer leadership for music at AMC was resumed.

Once again things changed in 1996 when the first paid minister of music, Larry Penner, was brought on staff During his short tenure, the music committee was dormant, but when he resigned to pursue teaching, the music committee took over his duties. During the tenure of AMC’s next minister of music, Mary Ann Johnson, the music committee was basically her sounding board and resource. Currently, the music committee continues in the “sounding board and resource” function for the current minister of music, Patricia Martin.

The addition of a minister of music to AMC’s leadership roster changed the church music program significantly. Finding volunteers to do things became easier, a wider variety of people were mentored in music, and the congregation began to feel the more pastoral nature of the minister of music person’s role. This minister became much more than a slot-filler – she/he was now a key worship planning resource to members and the pastoral team making AMC’s worship patterns more meaningful.

Professional musicians

The issue of using professional musicians at AMC is a big one. Only a few of the musically gifted among us are paid to perform or make a living from music — people such as music teachers and performers. But many in the AMC family could become professionals if they were given the luxury of time and training necessary for that. Some have great voices, others play the keyboard with natural talent, and some people could easily sit in the first chair of an orchestra, had they the time and resources to develop their skills professionally.

AMC, committed to using all of the musical talents in the congregation, looks at these individuals as resources to be tapped. At times people will say, ‘I can’t play or sing like so and so, so why should I try?” A nurturing congregation and an aware music leadership will recognize and use both the more professional level musicians and the beginners; it will enable those with less native talent to develop their skills and to perform on a more professional level over time. AMC would be much the poorer musically speaking if it had not, years ago, allowed 10-year-old Eric Martin the opportunity to play a prelude on Sunday morning!

The Pastoral Role of Music

Music is one of the most visceral impulses of the human experience. It touches us profoundly as mere words and images cannot. How can the notes on the pages jump out and so quickly and totally transport us to new planes of awareness? A piece of music can bring up a forgotten memory from years ago, remind us of a loved one, or smack us in the face with a new insight of a present reality. Music can be our prayer and our healing. It can unleash a power we cannot stop. Music in a worship service helps us to follow God’s grace and embrace the adventure of moving to a new level of spiritual awareness. This is the ministry of music at Akron Mennonite Church.

Though the miracle work of music at AMC cannot be planned or fully orchestrated, neither does it just happen without any effort on our part. Those in the congregation with musical gifts and those in music leadership roles have important work to do, and this document is designed to help them do it well.