Have you ever needed an instrumental piece for worship at the last minute? If you've found yourself in this situation, then you know it can be complicated and time consuming to track down a piece that will work. Because, after all, you're not just looking for any piece of music; you're looking for something that fits the theme of the day, is the right length, is in the right key, is manageable enough to put together the morning of, and is easily accessible (i.e. downloadable or something you already own).

As someone who's been in this situation many times, I've come up with a quick and easy solution: creating instrumental arrangements from music I already have (choral octavos, solo piano music, hymn harmonizations, vocal collections, etc.). 

This fall, SD and I are starting an intergenerational (youth and adult) choir at our church. The church has a strong children's choir program (through 6th grade) and a good size adult choir (30-40). Our program is a short, 8-week session designed for people who love to sing - no prior experience necessary. We meet once a week for an hour and at the end of the session, we'll combine with the adult and children's choirs to sing an anthem in worship.

We created this group for people that like to sing but feel uncomfortable jumping right into the adult choir, those who can't make Wednesday night rehearsals or don't feel they can make the year-long commitment, and those who've never formally sung in a choir but want the experience.

It sounded good on paper.

We gave the invitation by email, print mailings, and the weekly bulletin. We made an announcement in church one Sunday. We shook hands with people we didn't know at Coffee Hour.

One week before our first rehearsal, we had four people signed up.

Last week, we had our final choir rehearsal of the year. 

I knew it would be busy as we prepared for our spring program on Sunday (nine anthems + narration) but in the midst of moving the piano across the Sanctuary, putting everyone in order, getting the music organized, and listening for spots that needed to be reviewed at the end of our run-through, we shared an amazing teaching moment.

Reflecting on this later in the evening, I said to Steve, “Moments like that can’t be planned.  They just… happen.  I couldn’t have come up with that and written it into a lesson plan no matter how much time I spent preparing.  It came to me in the moment as a reaction to what was happening.  It was pure improvisation.”