New
by Phillip Magness
“Well, you’re the best dang musician we got in this congregation. So I expect you to get your patooties into that choir loft Wednesday night!”
H I G H E R
T H I N G S __ 10
Those were the words I still vividly remember, spoken to me by my pastor over twenty years ago. He had called me on the phone to let me know the choir director had resigned so that she could return to her former congregation. When he first politely asked me to take her place, I had declined, saying “I’m not a church musician, Pastor.” Sure, I had two degrees in music (piano performance) and was directing the choir at the local college, but I had studied classical piano, jazz improvisation, and music history while I was in school, not liturgical music. I didn’t feel qualified. But when he put it like that, how could I say no? And so began my long journey into the joy of church music. Like anything worthwhile, it has not been without hardship. Sometimes I like to say that I have earned “a Doctorate in Church Music at the School of Hard Knocks!” But I see now how everything in my life prepared me to become what we Lutherans call a “Cantor,” the chief musician of a parish, who assists the Office of the Holy Ministry by leading the people in the Lord’s song.
