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STAFF SPOTLIGHT: TOM SHELTON
Tom, pictured far left, directs the PUMC Children’s and Youth Choirs with grace.
For the nine years that Tom Shelton has been at Princeton UMC, he has helped children and youth absorb the messages of Christ through words and melodies – including some he wrote himself. Perhaps even more important, Tom has modeled how to show grace and compassion. What is his definition of grace and what helps him find it?
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“God’s grace is everywhere, and it manifests itself in different ways,” says Tom. “I don’t want to relate it to good deeds, because it’s not. It’s the way you spread kindness, the way you treat someone on the street, the way you follow the teachings of Jesus.”
Tom says he and his four sisters learned about grace from their mother, “the most grace-ious person I have ever met in my life. I get my positive spirit from her,” says Tom. “She is the best mother in the world.”
Then, in 18 years teaching in a North Carolina middle school, Tom had plenty of practice dealing with roiling hormones and teenage angst. “You can’t believe what happens in the three minutes when classes change,” says Tom. “I would stand at the door and smile at every student because I might be the only person that smiled at them that day. I gave them a chance to start over. To teach them how we are all different and can get along. We don’t have to agree, but we respect each other.”
Now, navigating today’s divided world, he tries to keep in mind that everyone is under stress. “Compassion is a really beautiful thing. I try to remember that their actions are not a reaction toward me. It is what they are dealing with. I personally try to give them grace to deal with that situation.”
Beyond his faculty roles at Rider University and the Princeton Girl Choir, Tom’s impressive resume includes being past president of the American Choral Directors Association, conducting choir festivals and honor choirs in Carnegie Hall, 20 states and some foreign countries, and publishing 70 of his own compositions. Yet when we see Tom, he is playing games with little kids or taking eight high school girls through their vocal exercises. How does grace play a part in this work at Princeton UMC? (continuedonpageseven)
