Music for October 11, 2020 - The FIRST SUNDAY back in church (10:15)

This Sunday will be our first Sunday back in church with a live service, which will also be livestreamed over You Tube. We'll have less music initially, with only one solo and instrumental music. For this week, you can expect to hear:

Vocal Music

• Will You Come and Follow Me? – John L. Bell (b. 1949), Bidkar Cajina, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Ciaconna in F Minor – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Brother James’ Air – Larry Shackley (b. 1956)
• Little Prelude in C Minor – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

The solo is a hymn by the Scottish minister John L. Bell, set to the Scottish folk melody KELVINGROVE. It's a gorgeous text call "The Summons."

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown?

Will you let my name be known?

Will you let my life be grown in you,

and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare,

should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you

and you in me?

Will you let the blinded man see if I but call your name?

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?

Will you kiss the leper clean,

and do such as this unseen?

And admit to what I mean in you,

and you in me?

Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell that fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found

to reshape the world around

through my sight and touch and sound in you,

and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I'll go,

where your love and footsteps show,

thus I'll move and live and grow in you,

and you in me.

This is the kind of hymn that is typical of Bell's writing. He began writing hymns in the 1970s to address concerns missing from the current Scottish hymnal:

"I discovered that seldom did our hymns represent the plight of poor people to God. There was nothing that dealt with unemployment, nothing that dealt with living in a multicultural society and feeling disenfranchised. There was nothing about child abuse…,that reflected concern for the developing world, nothing that helped see ourselves as brothers and sisters to those who are suffering from poverty or persecution." [from an interview in Reformed Worship (March 1993)]

He is now employed full-time in the areas of music and worship with the Wild Goose Resource Group, the publishing arm of the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions within Christianity which is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, with its main activities taking place on the island of Iona.

Another Scottish hymn-tune, BROTHER JAMES' AIR, will be played between scripture readings. Composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain (1840-1925), the Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James, the tune was first published in his volume The great peace: being a New Year's greeting ... (1915) and is often used as the tune for the metrical setting of Psalm 23, "The Lord's my Shepherd; I'll not want." Psalm 23 is the Psalm for Sunday.