At an emergency meeting on Sunday, the session heard evidence from officials and the COVID-19 subcommittee on the rising trend of COVID-19 infections in our area. According to communications from Ballad Health and its Emergency Operations Center, the delta variant of COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire throughout our region. In the past two weeks, inpatient treatment for the virus has tripled, and Ballad Health expects hospitalizations to double every week unless everyone does their part to mitigate the spread. Moreover, this has had great impact on children under the age of 18, with a sharp increase in young children being hospitalized, some even being put on ventilators, and quite a few suffering “long-haul” symptoms most commonly seen in adults with the virus.

Given that children under the age of 12 are ineligible for the vaccine, the drastic increase in infections in this age group, and the more dangerous outcomes for the young and those who struggle with other medical conditions (given the realities presented by the variants), the session voted by an overwhelming majority to make the following changes to our current COVID-19 policies:

In carrying out this mandate, staff will all wear masks during worship and other indoor events at the church. The worship team will be tested for COVID-19 with the Abbot Labs rapid test every Sunday morning before worship so that they can sing unmasked. The same will be true of those who preach or are involved in liturgy. The choir will be in the balcony, sing spaced out, and wear masks when not singing. The time for the anthem will be changed to reduce the risk of transmission, especially to children. During the passing of the peace, we will ask people to stay in place. We also ask that people avoid clustering in any one area for too long. On Wednesday, we will reduce the number of seats available at each table, and we will have everyone served from a line rather than in the self-serve style of previous years.

More changes may be voted on and implemented in the future, but this is where we start. Please, help us be part of the solution to this problem. /Pastor Sam

We will resume Wednesday night programming next week on August 18. We will gather at 5:30 for a common meal in the fellowship hall, followed at 6:15 by a program in the chapel. In response to the local surge in coronavirus variants, we will maintain the familiar pandemic-era levels of care. Given the need to practice distancing and hygiene, we will seat five or six people per table and ask that families and groups try to eat together.

Following the meal, we will gather at 6:15 in the newly renovated chapel for a program. On our first evening we will praise the Lord together with singing, prayer, and the reading of Scripture. On other evenings we may have special guest speakers. Starting in September, we will use this time to conduct a study using our Home Group curriculum. We especially encourage Home Group leaders to consider attending, as the study may provide additional insight for your group.

We are looking for volunteers to help with several meal-related tasks each Wednesday night. To minimize the number of hands on the serving utensils, we are changing from self-service to two volunteer-staffed service lines. For this, we need four to six people who can simultaneously spoon up food, plop it on a plate, and visit with our sisters and brothers in Christ. Servers will need to be in place by 5:25 for 5:30 meal service and able to stand for the duration of the food service. Youth are welcome to volunteer! Masking is strongly encouraged during serving.

Cleanup goes faster when more folks help. We would love a couple of volunteers to team up and work in either the fellowship hall or the kitchen. The fellowship hall team will wipe down the tables and shuttle things to the kitchen. We need two more volunteers to help in the kitchen by repackaging food that goes home as leftovers, operate the dishwasher and put dishes away, wipe down the counters and sinks, and sweep the kitchen. These kitchen tasks are a little more physically demanding, and the sensory experience includes heat, moisture, and noise. Sarah Gannaway will provide any training that is necessary for the hardy folks who volunteer for these tasks. Folks who help with cleanup get first shot at the leftovers! Anyone willing to volunteer for these tasks can email Sarah at [email protected].

We also need volunteers to deliver meals on Wednesday evenings to those in our congregation who are unable to come to the church. Anyone interested in helping in this way can email Justin Miller at [email protected].

Below are the entrees Sarah will prepare for our enjoyment through September. Except for the pizza. Sarah will be out of town then, but pizzas will appear, mannalike, in the fellowship hall.

August 18: pork loin

August 25: mac and cheese with ham

September 1: pineapple-soy glazed chicken

September 8: potato bar with chili

September 15: pizza night

September 22: chicken tortilla casserole

September 29: baked penne with Italian sausage

Johann Ernst Eberlin (1702–1762) was a German composer and organist whose works bridge the baroque and classical eras. He was a prolific composer, chiefly of church organ and choral music. Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, the leading German music theorist of the Enlightenment, claims that Eberlin wrote as much and as rapidly as Alessandro Scarlatti and Georg Philipp Telemann, a claim also repeated by Leopold Mozart, although Eberlin did not live nearly as long as either of those composers.

Eberlin's musical training began in 1712 at the Jesuit Gymnasium of St. Salvator in Augsburg, where Georg Egger and Balthasar Siberer taught him how to play the organ. He began his university education in 1721 at the Benedictine University in Salzburg, where he studied law but from 1723 turned to music.

His first breakthrough was in 1727, when he became the organist for Count Leopold von Firmian, the Archbishop of Salzburg at the time. He reached the peak of his career as the organist for Archbishop Andreas Jakob von Dietrichstein. By 1749 he held the posts of Hof- und Domkapellmeister (Court and Cathedral Chapel Master) simultaneously, an achievement which his successors Michael Haydn, Leopold Mozart, and Mozart himself were not to match. Leopold Mozart had a great opinion of Eberlin and sent his son some of Eberlin's keyboard pieces, his best-known works. The young Mozart tired of them, writing in a letter of April 20, 1782, that Eberlin's works were "far too trivial to deserve a place beside Handel and Bach."

Having played through much of his music, I find that Eberlin is rather fond of using repetitive patterns that move up or down by steps (sequence). At times his use of sequence goes almost too far. I can see why Mozart found his works less than inspiring. Nevertheless, his music is a joy to play and listen to. The “Prelude No. 1 in D Minor” and “Fugue No. 1 in D Minor” I am playing for the prelude and postlude are meant to be played together; I split the work in half to save time. Our offertory, “Sixth Toccata,” is a study in suspended harmonies and constantly changing tonalities. This beautiful piece finally lands safely in its home key of F Major. Enjoy!

Finally, I would like to comment on the hymn “Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets.” This hymn is an apt paraphrase of Proverbs 8, our scripture for Sunday. Written by Chris Shelton, pastor of Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City, it speaks of God’s eternal truth (Wisdom) and warns us not to listen to the fears and lies with which we are bombarded every day. This hymn is one of 50 new hymn texts of Chris Shelton published in his book, “Sing No Empty Alleluias” (GIA Publications).

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