The Minstry of Music

Liturgy: The public prayer of the church
I realise I've been plagerising alot lately, but I think the reason I do this is so that I can get rid of all the pieces of paper hanging around my table. Then one day, I hope to spend my golden years reading back what I wrote. Watch if I've grown, if I deteriorated, if I've become worst...yea...so this is what I got in the workshop last sunday afternoon at 3pm.
I think its a poem.

"Yours is a share,
in the work of the Lord's spirit,
who draws us together as one,who makes harmony out of discord,
who sings in our hearts, the lyric of all that is holy.
Yours is the joy of sounding that first note which brings the assembly to its feet,
ready to praise God.
Yours is to impart a "quality of joy and enthusiasm that cannot be gained in any other way"
Yours is a ministry that reaches the deepest recesses of the human heart;
your work is soul-stirring. Yours is none other than the Lord's song;
you draw us into that canticle of divine praise sung throughout the ages in the halls of heaven.
You help us respond to God's word, to acclaim the Gospel, to sing of our salvation of Christ.
Yours is a ministry that gathers so many voices into one grand choir of praise.

Come to your work from your personal prayer.
Let your rehearsals begin with prayer in common.
Let your practise be marked by unanimity in spirit and in ideals.
Be gentle in correcting one another:
The kingdom will not fall on one flatted note.
Open your choir to those whom the Lord has blessed with mmusical gifts;
help the not-so-gifted discern the talents that are theirs.
Rehearse the Lord's song with the reverance it is due. Take care to study the scriptures for the liturgy in which you will serve;
know well the word that calls forth our praise.
Let the lyrics of your songs be strong, tru and rooted in the scriptures; those who sing the Lord's word sing the Lord's song.
Make no room for the trite, the maudlin, the sentimental.
Open your hearts and voices to new songs worthy of God's people at prayer.
Let your repertoire change as all living things must,
but not so much that the song of God's people is lost.

Be ambitious for the higher gifts, but not beyond your gifts;
respect the range of talent the Lord has given you and your community.
Think first of the assembly's song, for this is the song you serve.
Let your music be always the servant of the Lord of God's people,
of the divine service they offer.
Let the service of your music complement but never overshadow the people's ritual prayer,and your art a gift.
Let technique become no idol, but a tool for honing the beauty of your gift.

Remember that your ministry is ever an emptying out of yourself;
when the solo is assigned to another, let that singer's offering become your prayer.
When no comments on the new motet, be thankful that your work led the people to God,
not you. When the assembly will not sing,be patient with them and with yourselves;
the Lord's song is sometimes a quiet one, and silence precedes every hymn.
Waste no time wondering, "Do you think they liked it?" but ask at all tiems,
"Did it help them and all of us to pray?" When your ministry leads you to music, it has led you astray. When the ministry leads you to the Lord, it has brought you home.

When your brothers and sisters thank and praise you for your work, take delight in the song their prayer has become and rejoice in its work the Lord has accomplished through you.
Be faithful in the work you do, for through it the Lord saves his people."

Thats enough typing on my part! Have a good holiday peeps!