Music for Sunday, September 12, 2021 + The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• The Mind of Christ – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
• God Extends an Invitation – Anne Krentz Organ (b. 1960)
• Trumpet Tune – Georg Philipp Telemann

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of  "I have decided" which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing.)

• Hymn 525 - The church’s one foundation (AURELIA)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ASSAM)
• Hymn 473 - Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Psalm 116:1-8

K. Lee Scott

Birmingham, Alabama composer Lee Scott has taken the hymn "May the mind of Christ, my Savior" and set it to the tune BATTY for a lovely anthem.  The text is called a "catalog" hymn, which list different things the believer asks: "May the mind of Christ," the "word of God," the "peace of God," and the "love of Jesus." The hymn was first published in the London children's hymnbook Golden Bells (1925) and has gained popularity in recent hymnals.

This text is attributed to Kate Barclay Wilkinson, an English woman from the turn of the 20th century. Little is known about Wilkinson's life: a member of the Church of England, she was involved in a ministry to girls in London and a participant in the Keswick Convention Movement. She was married to Frederick Barclay Wilkinson.

The tune is a Moravian melody by the German composer Johann Christoph Kühnau

Anne Krentz Organ

The communion voluntary is a setting of a Brazilian hymn, Nuestro padre nos invita,  arranged for the piano by the Lutheran composer Anne Krentz Organ, the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL.  She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Valparaiso University, a Master of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Illinois, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Church Music from Concordia University in River Forest, IL.

She came to a career in church music in a roundabout way.  She says,

I have a bachelor’s degree in piano performance, and a master’s degree in piano pedagogy. Piano teaching was my intended career. But the Spirit works in mysterious ways, and I began subbing for a Saturday evening service. Attendance was around 40-50 people, all of whom went up for communion at the same time, none of whom brought their hymnals along with them. There I would be, week after week, playing the communion hymn(s) verse by verse. That didn’t seem helpful, and at the same time, I was considering what to propose for my final project at Concordia [University]. It occurred to me that some “Reflections” on hymn tunes for holy communion might be useful. I arranged five communion tunes for piano, which were subsequently published by Augsburg Fortress as my first collection of piano arrangements.