Music Box
July 23, 2023
Peggy Pfeifer, Piano
Jubal Joslyn, Tenor
Prelude
Medley of Favorite Hymns
Offertory
God So Love the World……John Stainer
Postlude
Send the Light!……Charles H. Gabriel
“All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres”
From Peggy Pfeifer, today’s guest pianist:
“I have been attending Church in the Forest since 2019 and have a great appreciation for this faith community and its devotion to God’s ministry through music and meditation. My background as a musician includes my upbringing in a Christian environment with an emphasis on learning to play various musical instruments. My parents met in a church choir in Bethesda MD where my mother was the accompanist, and my sisters, both exceptional violin players, eventually pursued careers as performers and music educators. While raising my two children, I earned a BFA:Music degree from Eastern Connecticut State University.
My family currently lives in Kentucky where I was a church pianist for 15 years. I feel most comfortable as an accompanist and a song leader. For many years, as a public school teacher, a private piano teacher, and in the church, I’ve encouraged and led children and youth to experience the joy of singing and making music together.
In North American culture today there is not much opportunity for people to sing together. There is power in congregational singing and unison prayer. Singing has a unique way of bringing your heart, soul, and mind together to focus completely on God.
Hymns, or songs of praise to a higher deity, have been around since the 5th century BC. Christian hymnody derives from the singing of psalms in the Hebrew Temple. In the Middle Ages, trained choirs replaced the congregation in the singing of hymns, but during the Reformation in Germany congregational singing was reestablished. The first hymnal was published in 1532, and hymn writing and publication of Christian hymnals was so prolific in the 19th century that nearly every household in America had a copy of a hymnal in their home.
Today I am sharing a medley of traditional hymns which I hope will be familiar, or at least speak to you. I encourage you to hum, or even sing along, as your heart leads you.
We sing to glorify God, to connect with each other, and to comfort ourselves and others. Singing of hymns unifies a congregation and encourages reverence for the Bible. When we sing together we build up the body of Christ–and actually pray twice. (St. Augustine)
