Our Youth Choir

The Youth Choir at our church includes children from the age of 4 through youth in their teen years. If you look at the center of the picture you'll see my 4 yr old grandson, Theodore, in the red shirt. He can not read yet but he's very interested in making certain he is on the correct page in the hymnal : ) He is asking advice from his friend who is a year older, the son of one of our members. Yesterday was the last time they sang until the fall and the choir sounded terrific!

We are blessed at Christ Lutheran Church to have the raw ingredients for a fantastic musical aspect to our worship services. You get a glimpse of the wonderful pipe organ in the background. Because of the grand architecture of our church, the sound bounces from the balcony and fills the sanctuary. The youth who are directly in front of me are using handbells loaned from a neighboring church. This local Lutheran Church has gone the way of more contemporary services and has so few members I don't know if they could even garner enough people to play these bells. The bells were a memorial to their once thriving congregation so they won't give them away. They simply store them in our church balcony for us to use.

You can not see all the members of the choir but we had 17 singing yesterday. They sang Kyrie, God Father in Heaven Above which is based on a Latin sequence hymn from the 12th century. The younger children who can not read yet memorized the Greek phrases used in the hymn, eleison and Kyrie. While learning the melody and words, the children also learned about the Trinitarian aspect of this hymn and the connection it has to the liturgy we sing every week. No one has told these children that this is fuddy-duddy music; they love it and sing the hymns I teach them heartily. Pictured in the forefront is the son of a member and her husband . Also pictured is the daughter of another member. Since the parents attend our church because of the true faith conveyed through the traditional liturgy, I know they are pleased that their children are learning these hymns which will stay with them the rest of their life.

Our youth choir and the adult choir are often heard on our podcast along with our organist Jim Mercer. I'm not certain if this song will make the "cut" when it is available on the podcast but give a listen sometime and hear them! You can click on the CLC RADIO link on the right of this post to listen.