Jazz on a Sunday Morning

I like jazz and I like good Southern Gospel. At the 10:30 service this morning, my penultimate Sunday in the pulpit, the choir, aided by piano and bass guitar, adorned our normally very traditional service with the music of Robert Ray’s Gospel Mass. For a little variety, a modern jazz trio provided the prelude, postlude and Communion music. Wow! What a gift! The place was lifted off its foundations, and tears of joy wetted many a cheek. One of the joys of this place has been great music in almost every style except that cloying, sophomoric, saccharine praise stuff. We’ve had it in abundance with a terrific choir, a music director acknowledged as one of the finest organists in the country, and visiting musicians from college and university faculties who simply give of their talent to the glory of God’s name. The proliferation of talent that has come through this little valley of ours simply staggers the imagination. And this morning – it was the best. I could neither imagine nor desire a better retirement