For the remaining four Sundays of August, our worship is going to sound a little different — and I couldn’t be more excited.
We’re welcoming Tom Eure and Amelia Osborne as our guest worship music leaders for the rest of August. Together, under the name Inspired Arts & Sound, Tom and Amelia offer “faith-based music and art programming designed to inspire and connect community.” This month, they’ll be bringing those gifts to Emmanuel, leading us in a fresh way of making music in worship.
Now, if “a new way of doing worship music” makes you a little nervous — take a breath. It won’t be as unfamiliar as you might think. We’ll still be using the same liturgical music we’ve been singing for the past several months, mixed with beloved hymns, a few original hymns written by Tom, and some faith-filled folk classics. What Tom and Amelia add is their own beautiful texture: vocal harmonies, guitar, and percussion, all in service of drawing us deeper into worship as we try something new together.
I first met Tom and Amelia a handful of years ago, and I’ve admired their ministry ever since. They’ve become devoted lay leaders in the NC Synod, leading music and teaching workshops at synod and churchwide events across our church. They also created and lead the Gallery at Morning Star, a community art gallery on the campus of their home congregation, Morning Star Lutheran Church in Matthews, NC. That ministry — which celebrates “the beauty of expression as a community” — was even featured in Living Lutheran magazine. (You can read that story here.)
When we said farewell to Ford, our longtime organist, earlier this year and stepped into this season of transition, I knew it would be a good opportunity to experiment a little — to stretch ourselves and our comfort zones. And our Worshiping Ministry agreed. So I reached out to Tom and Amelia, who have graciously agreed to make the long drive each week so that we might experience something new together as we worship God.
So I hope you’ll join us for one, many, or all of these next few Sundays. And even more, I hope you’ll join me in joyfully praising God in a way that is something new and something familiar, all at the same time.