During the second year of pandemic the music ministry at St. John’s has continued to find ways to enhance our worship service with musical offerings. In 2020, after being shut down from corporate worship, music at St. John’s in some ways changed dramatically, but our goal remained the same—to try and offer the best music possible for our congregational worship. This year we continued to meet this goal with recording service music, playing our anthems over the Bluetooth in our sound system and finally in having our choir return to regular rehearsals with singers’ masks and having 8 singers sing our worship services. Here are the highlights of this past year 2021:
Worship Services
Our regular Sunday morning worship services were offered first during the early months of the year with no hymns being sung and no official choir. Choir anthems were recorded and played over Bluetooth as we live streamed the services. Music was offered by our handbell duet ensemble, Linda Curtis and Natalie Chiasson. We were also able to have area instrumentalists join us to offer special music in worship. Eventually we were able to allow 8 singers to sing live in our live streamed worship services, and eventually congregation members were able to join us in limited numbers and with protocols. By Easter we held 3 services: 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. both indoors with 2 trumpets and 8 choir singers in masks, and a 1 p.m. outdoor service with full choir and brass quartet.
After Easter we continued with 2 Sunday services each week. The choir offered music at the indoor 9 a.m. service and we used a keyboard outside under the trees in the cemetery for our 10:45 a.m. service. This continued through the summer months. Unfortunately the air conditioning was broken during the summer and both services had to be moved into the parish hall each Sunday.
In September we were given the OK to have regular worship without protocols and have group meetings again. We resumed choir and handbells and provided choir at the 11 a.m. service. We are grateful that little by little our usual worship practices (processionals, congregational hymn singing, full choir in the loft, etc.) are slowly returning and worship now feels more holy. We were able to offer the ‘Requiem’ by John Rutter with chamber orchestra for our November All Saints Evensong service. Christmas Eve was glorious with full choir at the 10 p.m. service and our special service of Lessons and Carols on the Sunday following Christmas Eve.
Throughout the pandemic our St. John’s Music Academy has continued to offer individual lessons on piano, violin and guitar. Perhaps because kids were home with online worship there was an upsurge in parents signing up their kids for lessons. Currently we have 18 piano students, 4 violin students, 1 organ student and 1 electric guitar student studying at our academy.
We were able to offer our annual Music Camp during July last year, and our parish hall was filled with the joyful sound of children’s singing (with masks) once again.
So we are committed to continuing to find ways to continue singing God’s praises, and more grateful than ever that we can worship together once again.
Originally published in St. John’s Newsletter, June 2022.