It continues to be a unique time for music ministry, and that conversation continues here on Ministry Monday. As a fellow pastoral musician, I’ve noticed that the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed for a re-evaluation of many of the things we use and depend upon in music ministry. Why not take this moment of pause and re-evaluation to grow and strengthen our musical and liturgical skills?

That is our focus this September. For the next two weeks you will hear about two learning and formation opportunities led by or partnered with NPM.

This week we begin by speaking to Teresa Cobarrubia Yoder. Teresa is a recently retired Director of Music Ministries at Immaculate Conception Church in Hampton, Virginia, where there alone she served for 25 years. Teresa is also a former instructor of music theory, chorus and madrigals at Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her combination of knowledge skill in both disciplines makes her a perfect candidate to offer a 4-week class in the fundamental basics of music theory. As you will hear shortly, this 4-week class (offered this September) will be perfect for choir members and cantors who want to learn the basics of music theory, and we encourage you to send this episode over to anyone whom you’d think would benefit from it!

The ins and outs of copyright licensing can be difficult. How do we declare what music we are using, especially across print and streaming mediums? How do we report, how often do we report, and what do we report? These were just a few of the many questions I found myself scouring the internet for as I live streamed liturgies at my parish for the first time last year. And so I called Katie Deaver. Katie is the assistant manager of ONE LICENSE and was gracious enough to sit down and answer questions about copyright licensing that I hope will help many other pastoral musicians as well.

It goes without saying that we, as pastoral musicians, have experienced a world of change in our ministries in the last year or so. The things that we never second-guessed, such as congregational singing, the incorporation of hymnals and choirs into our liturgies, became health risks. As we hopefully look towards a re-introduction of the elements that we so cherish in ministry, many of us are re-examining how we execute these elements. Now, we started this conversation 2 weeks ago when we spoke with Kelly Barth from Simply Liturgical Music. But today we shift the focus from technology to the physical, internal instrument so many of us value: the human voice.

As pastoral ministers, many of our cantors and choir members have not sung in over 15 months, at least not at the same level and frequency that they did pre-pandemic. How do we guide their voices with an even stronger sense of pastoral care?