Throwback Thursday: The Messenger, October 2006

Our series looking back twenty years enters its tenth month. Last month I shared the September 2006 issue of The Messenger, and Fr. Tom's reminder to parents to keep our focus where it should be. Or, as I think of it, putting the big rocks in the jar first. October 2006 is a wide-ranging newsletter, but it highlights two important groups: those who sing, and those who teach our children.

October 1, 2006 was Church Music Sunday, and the parish newsletter ran a photograph of its chanters and choir on the cover. Perhaps two dozen people were gathered under a tree outside a building that had been theirs for less than a year.

Inside, the newsletter reprinted an excerpt from a talk Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis gave to church musicians at the Atlanta Diocese Choir Conference that June. It explains what a choir is for: "to serve God by assisting in worship and leading people to an experience of God." He continues:

The word Liturgy means "the work of the people." ... The ancient tradition of the church was that all the people sang together the responses of the Liturgy. Hence, when you look at the Liturgy book, it says "Ιερεύς" or "Priest" next to the petitions and says "Λαός" or "people" next to the responses.

In a way, the choir is the people who go first, learning the music so the rest of us can find our way into it. They lead us in song and hymns and help the rest of us participate in worship so that, God willing, we might experience Him through the beauty and communion of Divine Liturgy.

I have not been blessed with musical talent at all, and have no training, knowledge, or understanding of music. I'm not exaggerating my ignorance: a dear friend sat me down a year or two ago and explained to me what a beat was. I had no idea. Growing up, I was quite thoroughly and regularly mocked for my lack of musical skills, and was told often that I "couldn't carry a tune if it was in a bucket."

Is it possible to have musical trauma? It might be. So I have always felt the initial miracle of my own conversion experience (I was an atheist before I was Orthodox) was followed on by a second miracle: my willingness to sing in church, at all. I don't think much of it now, but during my first year or so at Holy Apostles I was deeply aware of the strangeness of singing where anyone else might possibly be able to hear me.

Holy Apostles was founded as a parish with the specific goal of congregational singing, of keeping the people in the responses of our worship. Our amazing choir, first led by Pres. Pat and now by Sarah Bury, has done something deeply beautiful in not just leading us, but in opening up space for all of us, with our variable skills, knowledge and confidences, to enter into worship through song.

Pres. Pat has a cheerful way of declaring, "make a joyful noise unto the Lord!" that somehow envelops even the most timid of us in music teacher enthusiasm. And sometimes I glance over at the choir and see Sarah, gesturing with her dancer's elegance and precision at specific choir members, keeping everyone together and calling forth that one version of Soson imas that makes me cry nearly every time I hear it. With these people going first into worshipful song, how could we not follow?

This year, October 4 was Church Music Sunday. (It's in the nature of these annual celebrations to repeat like that.) Fr. Rob beautifully acknowledged our choir and blessed their work. A week later, our choir went first again, singing in our newly remodeled nave for the first time and helping to guide us through a powerful Divine Liturgy. What a joyful thing, and what a beautiful tradition to remember and show our gratitude to our choir!

The other group featured heavily in the October 2006 newsletter is the Sunday school teachers. According to the newsletter, more than fifty children were registered that fall, from two-year-olds to teenagers!

We are about to do this again. Under Tammie Duskin's direction as Church School director, a new Sunday school is taking shape and is expected to launch the second half of January 2027. The curriculum, the classrooms, and many of the Church School teachers will be new. The love, connection, and faith shared with our kiddos will continue in the long tradition of Holy Apostles.

Sprinkled throughout the October 2006 issue are quotes that direct our attention to the care and education of our children:

With us everything should be secondary compared to our concern with children and their upbringing in the instruction and teaching of the Lord. — St. John Chrysostom

And Jesus said...Let the children come to me! — Matthew 19:14

In January, our newly launched Church School and the youth of Holy Apostles will need their people. If you have been waiting to be asked, please consider this the asking. Just send an email to youth.ed@holyapostlesgo.org if you're interested in being part of our Church School team.

The full October 2006 PDF is below. Click on the cover image to download. I'll see you next month for November.

Warmly,

Erica