At its meeting on Monday, August 24, the session voted to follow the Bristol Tennessee City School (BTCS) system schedule in regard to in-person instruction on the church campus. What this means is that when BTCS is on a hybrid schedule of limited in-person and virtual instruction, we will be as well. When BTCS is on a schedule of virtual instruction only, we will hold only virtual classes.

With this in mind, we will resume limited in-person children's Sunday School on September 13, pending any decisions from BTCS. Children will be expected to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines. We will also offer virtual lessons for those who elect to stay home.

In regard to our nursery, please stay posted. We are working with a group of volunteers to see whether we might resume limited nursery offerings. We ask for everyone's patience in this process. We are doing our best to balance responsible concern with the needs of the congregation.

In Christ,

Pastor Sam

In the month of September, the Stewardship Committee is highlighting the transformative contributions of two of our longtime members who went to be with the Lord in 2019. Dot Copenhaver and Marynan Smith left gifts to the church in their wills, and God used those gifts to free our church from all our debt. Their generosity was overwhelming, and it continues to pay dividends in that we have not had to carry such a weighty financial burden during the hard economic circumstances the COVID19 pandemic has presented. God is good, and God uses all of our gifts to glorify his name and lift others up!

If you are interested in discussing ways you might follow their lead, or have questions about planned giving to the church, please contact our Church Business Administrator, Betsy Galliher. You can email her at [email protected] or call her at the church office at (423) 764-7176.

Scammers who want your personal information and money continue to ply their trade in Bristol and among our congregation. They send messages, by email, text, or websites such as Facebook, that appear to be from FPC staff asking you for a favor. They use deceptive email addresses such as fpcbristol@gmail (close but no cigar). You may receive a brief note from "Pastor Sam" or "Dave" asking you to handle an urgent matter discreetly by replying to the message. Do not reply. Other scams may tell you to buy a gift card for someone in need or a worthy-sounding cause and send the card codes to the phone number provided. These are scams. The staff of FPC will never ask you to do any of these things. Please do not respond or take any action beyond marking the emails as spam so that your email provider can send future communications from these people to your junk folder. You can learn more about scammers and gift cards here.

	Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who is considered among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. His music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, as well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations.

During his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an organ composer. He wrote more than 200 pieces for the instrument, both liturgical and secular, and explored most of the genres that existed at the time.

Much of his liturgical organ music is relatively simple and written for manuals only: no pedal is required. This is partly due to Lutheran religious practice: congregants sang the chorales. The quality of the organs Pachelbel used also played a role: south German instruments were not, as a rule, as complex and as versatile as those in the north.

About 20 of his toccatas survive. They are characterized by consistent use of pedal point; for the most part, they consist of relatively fast passagework in both hands over sustained pedal notes. Pachelbel's contributions to the genre are not sectional, unless rhapsodic introductory passages in a few pieces (most notably the Toccata in E minor, which you will hear as Sunday's postlude) are counted as separate sections. Furthermore, no other Baroque composer used pedal point with such consistency in toccatas.

Many of Pachelbel's toccatas explore a single melodic motif, and later works are written in a simple style in which two voices interact over sustained pedal notes. That interaction, already much simpler than the virtuosic passages in earlier works, sometimes resorts to consecutive thirds, sixths, or tenths. You will hear this in the Toccata and Pastorale (Sunday's prelude.)

Pachelbel composed six fantasias. The E-flat Major Fantasia (played during communion) is a variation on the Italian toccata di durezze e ligature genre. In the 17th century, durezza meant "dissonance." So a toccata di durezze e ligature was a toccata with dissonances and tied notes; in a way, a composition study in appoggiaturas. This is a gentle, free-flowing piece featuring intricate passages in both hands with many accidentals.