As we look forward to celebrating our seniors in worship services they will lead May 22, we are collecting Legacy Letters to present to them on that Sunday. We invite family, teachers, coaches, neighbors, friends, and others to write. It is a wonderful opportunity to encourage our seniors in their future plans and faith as well as to acknowledge the beautiful gifts God has given them.

Legacy Letters describe the impact the senior has had on the writer’s life. Letters can share memories, stories, lessons learned, or significant moments. Our hope is that these Legacy Letters will give family and friends an opportunity to share the influence the seniors have had on those around them. The letters will be a beautiful collection of love and truth that they can read as they begin their new journey after high school, and serve as a reminder of the loving community that is cheering them on.

Davis Akard

Sophie Arnold

Bailey Bechtold

Jon Blankenship

Keona Fielitz

Zora Gross

Rachel Kent

Lily Rosser

Beckham Schiesz

Samuel Weddington

If you would like to participate, please mail or deliver all cards and letters to Katie Arnold’s attention at the church by May 20, or email your letters (or questions) to her.

On Sunday, May 15, our confirmation students will proclaim their faith to our church family and become members of First Presbyterian Church. As we prepare for this special day, we ask their friends and family to write them cards and letters of spiritual encouragement. You might share a story or memory, something about your own faith, or ways in which knowing them has made a difference in your life, or you might speak love and truth that will spur them on in their faith. The kind words you share will encourage them as they prepare to be confirmed and be kept for years as a reminder of the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds them and that will continue to love, guide, and encourage them as they run the race (Hebrews 12:1-2).

You can send your encouragement (or questions) by email to Katie Arnold, or mail or hand-deliver your cards and letters to her attention at the church by May 13.

Since September 2020, the following students have participated in weekly classes that have informed and challenged their ideas about faith. Watching them grow over the past school year and take ownership of their faith has been a joy and an inspiration!

Landon Brooks

Samuel Hankins

Nora McCracken

Jack Richardson

Owen Smith

Sophia Streetman

Memorials and honoraria are published in the newsletter only after the family has been personally notified by our business office. Today we gratefully acknowledge the following gifts in memory of:

Our prelude, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” is especially arranged for our adult handbell choir and our children handbell shakers. This piece is derived from a solo organ arrangement by E. Power Biggs, which in turn is derived from a chorale setting from the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (“Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life”), BWV 147, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1723. Bach’s four-part setting with independent orchestral accompaniment of two stanzas of the hymn “Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne,” written by Martin Janus in 1661, was sung to a melody by the violinist and composer Johann Schop, “Werde munter, mein Gemüthe.” The movements conclude the two parts of the cantata. Bach scored the chorale movements (6 and 10) from Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben for choir, trumpet, violin, oboe, viola, and basso continuo. The music’s wide popularity has led to numerous arrangements and transcriptions, such as for the classical guitar and, in Wendy Carlos’s album Switched-On Bach, on the Moog synthesizer, and for our fabulous handbell ringers (young and old).

Our choir is singing “The Lord bless you and keep you,” which I consider one of the most beautiful anthems from the pen of John Rutter (b. 1945). Rutter is an English composer and conductor associated mainly with choral music and active internationally for many years. His larger choral works, Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, The Gift of Life, and Visions, are widely performed around the world, and many of his shorter pieces, such as “The Lord bless you and keep you,” “For the beauty of the earth,” “Look at the world,” and “All things bright and beautiful,” have become standards. He has composed or arranged many Christmas carols. He established the Collegium record label in 1983 as a vehicle for recordings with his professional chamber choir, the Cambridge Singers, and they have made more than 50 recordings. He has enjoyed a long association with Clare College, Cambridge, first as student, then as Director of Music, later as parent, and as recording producer for their renowned choir. Our postlude, “Toccata in Seven,” is from Rutter’s A Second Album for Organ. As the name implies, it bops along in 7/8 time from start to finish.

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