Musician’s Musings

Bearing Fruit

June 15, 2023

Summer is officially here for music ministry! Once we have passed the threshold of the celebrations of Corpus Christi, most music ministries consider it their “summer season.” During this summer season, we have some time to reflect, plan, and experiment!

We have been so blessed with much growth in our ministry, having welcomed many new members in the past few months and having added our brand new hymnals to all three of our churches! Truly, our ministries are bearing much fruit! As we continue to see growth in numbers of our music ministers and as we explore our new hymnals and the fresh and beautiful repertoire they bring, you will both see and hear newness and change within our churches and liturgies. As worship and music are a collaborative effort on behalf of our entire community, our goal as music ministers is to communicate as much as possible while we are experimenting with the growth of our ministry.

This summer, you will see different configurations of our musicians in our beautiful church spaces so that we can accommodate our growing numbers! You might see or hear us singing from different locations, and utilizing different ways of working with the acoustics, sound systems, and space of our three unique churches.

We hope to see more growth, as well! If you are interested in joining, please check out our Music Ministry page. We welcome new musicians at any time!

You will also hear many new songs and hymns as we lean into learning some of the new repertoire included in our hymnals. We will continue to update our Spotify playlists regularly so that you can listen to the music of our masses throughout the week as well! We hope to hear you singing along with us, and we also hope to present more ways of learning these songs together as we dive into the curated collection of music which has been updated within these books to honor the tradition of the church, while embracing the diversity and message of the church today!

Growth is so exciting, and we hope to continue to see our community bearing much fruit as the vine and branches of the church as we work together to worship and sing!

Open the Eyes of My Heart

May 18, 2023

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
Open the eyes of my heart-
I want to see You,
I want to see You.
To see You high and lifted up-
Shining in the light of Your glory.
Pour out Your power and love,
As we sing holy, holy, holy…
Holy, holy, holy,
Holy, holy, holy,
Holy, holy, holy,
I want to see You.
Paul Baloche © 1997 Integrity's Hosanna! Music (Admin. by Integrity Music)

This weekend we are singing in mind of the ascension. If you attend our 9am or 11am masses, you’ll hear Open the Eyes of My Heart as our meditation song after communion. We invite you to take a listen to these lyrics… we will be singing them imagining seeing Our Lord “high and lifted up, shining in the light of [His] Glory.” We hope this song brings you into the mindset of longing to see Our Lord in all of His glory, and this is why we are bringing this song to you this weekend!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this little peek into the why behind our music! Hope to hear you singing with us.

Spotify Playlist

November 25, 2022

Check out our new Spotify account!

As our community prepares to enter the season of Advent, take a listen to a playlist of the music we’ll be singing throughout these next four weeks!

We will kick off this weekend with a new song: Awake to the Day by Ed Bolduc. We invite you to consider the lyrics of the refrain as we sing together –

“Awake to the day of the coming of The Lord! Sing out! Rejoice in this land. Make straight the way, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!”

Are we waking up today looking for the coming of The Lord?

New Wine

October 5, 2022

If there is one constant in this life, it’s change.

This week following the announcement of the Seek the City initiative, I find I have a certain lyric running through my head:

“In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine.”

In 2017, Brooke Ligertwood and Hillsong released a song called New Wine, and from these lyrics I’ve found both comfort and inspiration when facing the pressure of change. This week especially, I am settling through a big change of my own in a new position and a new community! Singing songs such as this as my prayer is how I feel closer to the Lord when I need Him the most.

Change is happening in our city and in our parish, whether we like it or not, and whether we’re ready for it or not. So I then ask, why not embrace this as an opportunity to try something new? Perhaps we not only accept the change, but welcome it as God making new wine.

In this context, I often think about Mark, Chapter 2. In Mark 2:22, we hear Jesus say: “no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

The whole chapter of Mark 2 seems to be speaking of a new paradigm. A new way of doing things. And, I think especially now as we also look to our own new paradigm through this initiative, it can be an invitation to imagine what a fresh wineskin looks like to us. If we are asking God to make new wine out of us, what kind of wineskin are we pouring ourselves into?

I hope you take a listen to New Wine with me this week as we all consider the changes around us both personally and within our parish. This weekend as we include it in our liturgy, I hope you sing along. Let’s pray together that we allow God to make new wine out of all of us.

“In the crushing, in the pressing,
You are making new wine.
In the soil I now surrender:
You are breaking new ground.
So I yield to You and to Your careful hand;
When I trust You I don't need to understand.
Make me Your vessel,
Make me an offering,
Make me whatever You want me to be.
God, I came here with nothing,
But all You have given me,
Jesus, bring new wine out of me.

'Cause where there is new wine
There is new power,
There is new freedom,
And the kingdom is here.
I lay down my old flames
To carry Your new fire today.”

Spotify - New Wine, Hillsong Worship