From 1987-2009, I directed Living Water, originally a senior high choir. As the years continued, we evolved to encompass a much broader age range, from middle school to adults. Our primary ministry was at our home church, but also included off-campus visits to retirement communities and convalescent homes. As a means of helping us learn how to serve in our ministry, I used to send letters to Living Water on a regular basis.
These letters usually went in the postbox shortly after each performance – and, later, were emailed every week or so. In many of them, I included some material of a choral-technical nature to widen our horizons. This worked out pretty well because we really didn’t have time to address these issues in depth during rehearsal. And so this resulted in writeups on a number of topics:
- Aspects of Ministry: A look at what makes ministry tick.
- Choral Diction: How words work in choral music and how to make them understood by your audience.
- Concert Preparation: What goes into preparing a concert program.
- Philosophy of Ministry: My personal understanding of ministry, and how it all fits together.
- Recursive Ministry: What’s involved in building and maintaining a self-perpetuating ministry.
- Rehearsal Technique: Ideas about how rehearsal should work.
- Remote Choral Tidbits: A few mini-articles related to choral ministry written during COVID-19.
- Sight Singing: Thoughts about how to develop sight-singing skills.
- Solo Ringing: Basics of learning and performing handbell solos.
- Songwriting: Concepts important to songwriting.
- Worship Teams: A discussion of worship teams/praise bands, their contribution to church life, and their relevance in ministry.
These discussions are provided as a public service by Choraegus. Feel free to use them in your ministry – please be sure to include the authorship and copyright notices on the copies you make!