Introduction

I'm gonna sing when the Spirit says "Sing"...

I'm gonna obey the Spirit of the Lord.

(from an African American Spiritual)

Pastoral ministry is like a fever. It is, in the words of Jeremiah, "a burning fire shut up in my bones." We who do it shake our heads after five or ten or twenty years at it, and wonder where the desire has come from which allowed us to survive the rarefied atmospheres and smothering valleys of human interaction, the pettiness and subterfuge of some of our leaders, the dull heroism of the fidelity of others, the vast wastelands of the spiritual journey with its voices that taunt us, "nada, y nada, y pues nada."

And yet, we can no more not do this work than a bird can stop singing, or the sea stop its charge to the shore. Like them, we are moved to song and action by the Spirit of God. We can no more escape the call than Jonah could. Jumping ship, we are engorged by the holy leviathan and vomited back onto the shores of duty with an uncanny sense that this is God's idea of an invitation, and if we know what's good for us, we won't stand Her up.

I have been at the work of liturgical and musical ministry for over twenty years now. I have to admit that I love my work. Yes, it can be dull and frustrating. Yes, I have been wounded and yes, I have wounded others, firing defensive and paranoid salvos of poisoned arrows in the direction of some who have held variant opinions over the years. In time, I may yet find some echo of the Teacher in my own actions. When I do, I know it will be amazing grace at work, or a cosmic accident of evolutionary proportion. I want to be a Christian, I dream of being an apostle. I am settling for being a disciple. An amateur.

This is a book for amateurs.

Now, before you throw it in the trash or put the cover of a Tom Robbins novel over it so no one will know what you are reading, let me explain. The word amateur gets a bum rap these days, probably thanks to Ted Mack and George Bernard Shaw, who has since been probably surprised to discover that it is heaven, and not that other place of eternal lodging, which is full of musical amateurs. But in its original sense, an amateur is a lover. An amateur is an enthusiast, and at the heart of enthusiasm is theos --God. This book is for liturgical and musical amateurs in the sense that the Olympics is for the Amateur Athletic Union. It is a book for amateurs who do the work, who practice, who study, who have a passion for this calling of ours. It is a book for lovers of the church--of people, of the liturgy and its music.

If this is a book for you, read on.