“Conversations from the Roosevelt Organ”
You are invited! Please come join us for our 5th Sunday Concert of Celebration and Worship as we experience “Conversations from the Roosevelt Organ” with our very own Zerek Dodson. The repertoire for the morning will be an exiting exploration of sounds spanning from the traditional to the contemporary; from highlighting the touch and technique of the Toccata to venturing into the modern minimalistic sounds of today; and of course, a voyage into the emotional, aural fireworks of the wide open pipes of the Carillon! Please invite your friends and family, young and old. We promise a wonderful musical ride for all!
For those of you who want to know more about our 5th Sunday experiment at First Church, read on! We are using our 5th Sundays in worship (around four times a year) to experiment with a new vision/idea. The vision is inspired by a church in London – Saint Martin in the Fields – that had been leading a Thursday afternoon worship service with excellent musicians but had very low attendance. They decided to do an experiment and call it a “concert” instead of a worship service (the pastor still gets up and speaks about God, scripture; tells stories related to the music, the composers, the text…etc) and now it is packed on Thursday afternoons! So, we decided to try this on our 5th Sundays this year, take note of the responses, learn how to do it well…etc. If it goes well, I will then apply for a grant to start a new “concert/service” here at First Church sometime outside of Sunday morning.
I’ve had younger people tell me that if people knew what we were doing here, worship would be packed. I think this is true in part, we do need to figure out how to better let people know/hear/see what we are doing here; but I think it is also important to take into account that many are uncomfortable, or at best, just unlikely, to come church. This could be a way to reach out into our larger community, feed it spiritually, and make it a very warm and welcoming door to walk through, and continue to grow the First Church community.
Hope to see you on August 31st in worship! Help us build the experiment!
Much joy,
Charlotte